


out of the depths

by therewasagirl



Series: Felicity Smoak [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: (more tags to be added), F/M, OTA dynamics, Symbolism, dream imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:10:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl
Summary: Felicity knew what she had to do. She could feel it, as if the path opened up in front of her, and she could see exactly where it would take her. She knew. And that was why she was afraid."I can't go down there. I can't," she whispered, turning to her mother. "If I go down there -""Oh honey." Donna cupped Felicity's cheek, her thumb stroking back and forth. "You're already down there."





	1. 6∞∞ mILEs of hAPPineSs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We are here to forget everything that borders on yellow or blue. We are to imagine an absolutely pure red, like the fine carmine suffered to dry on white porcelain. The unbounded warmth of red has not the irresponsible appeal of yellow, but rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly .
> 
> Whoever is acquainted with the prismatic origin of red will not think it paradoxical if we assert that this color, partly _actu _, partly_ potentia_, includes all the other colors. 
> 
> We have remarked a constant progress or augmentation in yellow and blue and seen what impressions were produced by the various states. Hence it may naturally be inferred that now, in the union of the deepest extremes, a feeling of satisfaction must succeed. And thus, in physical phenomena, this highest of all appearances of color arises from the junction of two contrasted extremes which have gradually prepared themselves for a union. 
> 
> The effect of this color is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys as impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness. The first in its dark deep state, the latter in its light attenuated tint. And thus the dignity of age and the amiableness of youth may adorn itself with the degrees of the same hue.” 
> 
> \- Goethe’s “Theory of Color”; Wassily Kandinsky’s “Concerning The Spiritual In Art”

**_ De Profundis _ ** [1]

  ** _6∞∞ mILEs of hAPPineSs_**

 

>   _The world seemed so glamorous, didn’t it, once? And that was my fault, how I wished and fell. In my best moments, looking back, this is what I tell myself: I’ve wanted only to sleep and dream and wake in some country my heart could call home._
> 
> _—         Cecilia Woloch_

Felicity jerked awake, gasping. Her hands fluttered to her waist, the phantom pain so real she could swear she still felt it. She was in her own bed and it had all been just a dream, but it took a couple more deep breaths for that to sink in.

“F’licity?”

She slumped back down with a groan and felt Oliver shift, fitting his knees to the backs of hers, holding her just a little more firmly.

“Everything all right?”

His voice was still rough with sleep, but he sounded alert as ever. Felicity smoothed a hand down his forearm.

“Yeah. I just… had the weirdest dream. What time is it?”

“Not dawn yet.”

He strung a couple of bristly kisses at the back of her neck, his hand moving soothing up and down her side before he snaked his arm around her torso. Then he stilled. Minutely, but Felicity felt it.

“Your heart’s beating really fast, hon,” he murmured against her skin.

Felicity closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Yeah.”

“Feel like telling me about it?”

Not particularly, but she didn’t want to keep it to herself either.

“We were at PT, a conference or something,” Felicity gulped, unable to finish it. “My dad was there too, but it wasn’t _right_.”

Oliver took a deep breath, his chest expanding against her back, his fingers linking through hers. “Sounds like an eventful dream.”

“It was a mess. I got shot,” she added softly. Her hand fluttered to her side, as if she would find the bullet wounds there still. A shiver climbed up her spine, shaking her a little. Her tank top sticking to her back reminded her so vividly of her dream and the feel of blood soaking through her coat, that she wanted to take it off. But then she felt Oliver’s tension in the way he went utterly still behind her, not even breathing before he propped his weight on his elbow so that he could look down at her face, and she knew getting naked - even in the fun way - would have to wait.

Felicity turned, facing him. His face was still sleep-soft, but his eyes were serious. “This is about last night, isn’t it?”

“ _No_.”

Oliver looked unconvinced. She had known he would think that, and for a flat second there, Felicity did consider if it might have been better not telling him any of it, but then dismissed the thought out of hand. Keeping things from each other, even the little things that were supposed not to make the other worry, didn’t pave the way for any place Felicity wanted to revisit.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She finally admitted. Oliver fixed an unwavering stare on her that made Felicity roll her eyes. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Kinda means _something_ , Felicity,” Oliver said softly.

“You needed me out there last night-”

“I’m not arguing about that. Anymore,” he added, at her raised eyebrow. “I just… I’m not sure it’s worth it if it’s going to end up with you having nightmares every night.”

Felicity curled her hands around his biceps.  “Look, I’m not a big fan of getting shot at. Or _anyone_ getting shot at, really. And I don’t mean that I wasn’t scared. It _was_ scary.”

Oliver smoothed a stray hair away from her face. “Yes. It was.”

“But I can deal with it.”

His smile was both proud and resigned. “I know you can.”

She poked him on the side, her smile getting wider, more playful. “I know what you’re thinking now.”

“There isn’t much you can’t do, is there?”

She snorted. “Don’t think for a second you can change the rules just because you’re Mister Smoak now.”

“Mister _Smoak_?”

“Why, any objections to taking my name?”

Her tone dared him to give her an answer that would land him in trouble. Hell, he was half-tempted to give her some sassy comeback, just to see what creatively satisfying way to get back at him she could come up with.

Instead, Oliver leaned down and kissed her. 

“Nope. Not at all. I love your name.”

She smiled against his lips, linking their fingers together, their matching rings clinking. His flirty kisses were some of her favorite kisses.

“You know--” Felicity started as she slipped her thigh between his and bit her lip, trying not to smile too wide. She knew her hair was probably all over the place and she had the imprint of her cushion’s crease somewhere along her cheek, and knew by the look on Oliver’s face, that none of that mattered. “ _This_ looks a lot more like the conversation I _wanted_ to have on the morning of my birthday.”

He tried to look unimpressed but his eyes were crinkling at the corners. “I can tell you’re trying to distract me, by the way.”

“Huh. I was trying to seduce you. Obviously I’m doing something wrong here,” she arched her back, eyes wide and innocent staring back at him. He was really smiling now as he settled his weight between her thighs and kissed her again.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to celebrate it.” Oliver reminded her.

“You made a _really_ compelling argument about it last night,” she murmured against the shell of his ear and felt his chest rumble with quiet laughter.

“I did give it my best.”

And he had. She felt the warmth unfurling low in her belly just remembering how he’d woken her up at 2:30 am, kissing his way down her back and then turning her around, so that he could give her her birthday present.

Thoroughly.

Twice.

Felicity bit her lip to keep her grin from overtaking her face. He was such an overachiever really, but it wasn’t as if she was complaining.

“Much appreciated. _Much_ ,” Felicity ran her hands up his back, though at this point she was a little breathless and her words were starting to blur together. “Though I’m not really sold on the whole, ‘ _celebrating it with an actual party’_ part of this arrangement.”

“There are plenty of other people who want to celebrate the day you were born and be grateful you’re in our lives, Felicity.”

He said it so earnestly, as if it was something anyone would say, that Felicity didn’t even have the heart to snort.

She did pinch his ass though. Oliver had been kissing his way up her neck, so when he laughed, it was right by her ear and it made her squirm.

He leaned back to look at her, still laughing. “ _What_ are you doing?”

“Pot. Keetle.”

One of his eyebrows arched up. “Your hands and my ass?”

“Wow, that sounds way dirtier than what it was, but close. You and your ‘ _happy you’re in our lives_ ’ little speech.”

They both knew thought that it wasn’t so different from the one she had given him on _his_ last birthday.

He pressed his forehead on hers gently, eyes soft with feeling. “We match, don’t we?”

“Yup.” In strange and unpredictable ways, even after knowing each other for so long. “I think I might need you to persuade me a little more though.”

She tried to say it with a straight face, she really did, but couldn't really help her grin. Oliver was much better at it though. He kept a completely straight face and sighed, as if put upon, but it quickly lost the wanted effect when his hand slipped down to cup her ass, bringing their hips together and she felt just how _not_ reluctant he really was.

“I suppose I _could_ make my case again.” 

“Hm. Yup, do that,” she murmured as she kissed her way up his throat.

“I’m starting to find out I’m great at negotiations.”

She agreed. Enthusiastically. “Yeah. Yup. The best. My thighs can’t wait to hear what your hands have to say.”

He laughed just as Felicity stopped groping his chest and pulled her tank top off in one impatient motion. He had her nipple in his mouth before that flimsy piece of cotton was off her, palming her other breast, making her hiss and arch off the bed. She felt tender all over from just a few hours before, but not enough to move him. In fact, Felicity threaded her fingers through his hair to keep him close instead, as the other slipped down his chest, scratching a little as she went, and slipped her other hand beneath the waistband of his boxers, palming his perfectly formed ass. His hips arched into her as if against his own volition with a small groan that made her smile. The shiver that shook his whole body was almost as delicious as the way his chest rumbled. Oliver shifted his hips against her, rocking them close together.

That’s how they’d done it last night: with him on top, her thighs pressing against his sides, holding on to each other tight as he moved inside at a maddeningly slow pace, kissing her face, her lips, her neck. Hands linked together, breathless whispers against each other’s lips, grinding pleasure into each other slowly, deliberately, making love like they were separating salt from water[1]. Like they had all the time in the world and they planned to spend it just like this: being together. And Felicity had never felt more loved or cherished than she had in that moment, surrounded by a world of tenderness.

This morning though, she wanted something else, so she pressed her palm flat against his fast-beating heart and pushed gently. Oliver didn’t need more incentive than that to fall back, pulling her with him. Felicity rolled on top of him; kept kissing him, hands skimming up his arms and around his shoulders, pressing her breasts to his chest and moving against him, just a little, because she couldn’t help it. The feel of his skin made goosebumps break all over hers. 

Oliver’s hands chased her as she moved down his body, taking his boxers with her. His confusion showed in his eyes when, instead of getting between his legs or even coming back into his arms, she stood up on the bed right above him.

He really was quite the sight, she thought, as she took in the sight he made looking up at her, wide hands caressing up and down the back of her calves. A thought that was chased away then when he sat up and filled his hands with her ass, using the pull to bring her closer so that he could kiss a line down her stomach to the edge of her boyshorts.

She shimmied out of them before Oliver had a chance to drag them off her, kicking them off the bed with an exaggerated  flourish of her foot and a smile, lower lip caught between her teeth. And after, she just stood there, her feet planted on each side of his thighs, and let him look.

His eyes skimmed her up and down, stopping between her legs and at her breasts in a look so hot she could feel it rolling over her like the high-noon heatwave in the middle of August. When he finally got to her face, Felicity’s smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively. It was kind of beyond the point when she was standing there with her crotch practically in his face, but it still made him grin so wide his dimples showed.

And Felicity swore she’d never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of him just then, grinning even though he was panting. She wasn’t that much behind him really, she could feel the heat coiling inside her and liquefying between her legs. But tenderness too was there, soft and alive, beating its soft wings against her chest.

Felicity threaded her hand through his hair and pulled gently, arching his head back. “Laughing at me, Mister Mayor?”

He shook his head and bit his lip but it’s not like it dampened his smile any.

“No, I’m not.”    

She shifted closer as Oliver hugged her thighs and pressed a very innocent kiss on the curve of her belly. Felicity bent her knees then and with his help, sat on his lap, pressing down on him just right, making him suck in a harsh breath.

His eyes were so dark and his hold tighter than he meant it to be, she knew.

She loved him just like this.

“Yes, you are,” she whispered as she wound her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth the moment it was close enough.

“I’m laughing because I’m happy,” he said softly against her lips, after.

“Yeah?” her voice was thick with emotion and it shook a little.

“Yeah.”

It would have been so strange ones, to be so overwhelmed she could cry, but it wasn’t anymore. Felicity could see her feelings mirrored in the blue of his eyes, so full of love that it was spilling over.

It washed down her back, warm and heavy and so real it made her spine throb. Love that pooled all around them as her knees dug into the mattress, lapping at her ankles and her thighs and everywhere he touched her. A whole cacophony of sensations that came over her in a rhythm only Oliver seemed to know.

Felicity caught one of his hands and kissed the center of his palm, and then his lips, because she loved both and every inch in between. She pushed herself as close to him as she could, and felt him wrap an arm around her, his other hand tangling in her hair to keep her close as she nipped at his lower lip and then sucked it in her mouth just a little. His moan was a little helpless and his kiss a little desperate. 

They had been together for almost two years now. That was twenty months and two weeks’ worth of kissing him, in all the ways Felicity could imagine how. And yet there was still a small edge of warm surprise at how someone as controlled and careful as Oliver, could be brought to a point where he kissed so chaotically. That he could want so desperately, and that she could take him to that point every time.

They kissed like that, pressing against each other until the friction was maddeningly not enough and they were both burning with the need of it. Until he buried his face into her neck and took a gentle bite, groaning her name as his hand clenched her ass, trying to bring her closer. By the time she took him inside her she was aching for it, her whole body trembling with need.

She pushed him back down on the bed and leaned over him, palms flat on his chest, and that’s how they did it. Fast and desperate, with her thighs squeezing his hips, his feet planted on the bed so that he could give as good as he got.

Felicity’s eyes closed and she let head fall back, let herself feel everything. His slick skin beneath her palms, the tips of her hair tickling her back. His hot palms pressing fingerprints on her ass, or pushing low against her belly, delicious pressure. His breathless panting, the helpless groans every now and then that made her push into him harder, twisting her hips the way she _knew_ would make the edges of his vision white out, just to hear those sounds from him again. Her own voice mixing with his, a chain of senseless words that were mostly his name.

She could feel it coming, from the tingle at the tips of her toes, climbing in her veins like a hot wave, coiling the awareness of her every single sparking nerve to where he was inside her. He pressed his thumb lightly against her clit for her to grind against and that was it, there went the last coherent thought she had.

Her eyes snapped open, needing to find his, just as the first rays of the sun pooling through the windows washed over them both. 

Felicity’s breath hitched, her thighs shook as the twisting tension in her body tightened and then snapped loose.  Pleasure rushed over her like warm water, just as Oliver sat up to catch her, holding her against him as she shook, digging trembling fingers into his shoulders and pressing her last whimpers against his mouth.

She kept her eyes open the whole time, looking at him as he looked back. At the flush on his face and his every expression. She could have laughed at how they were both a little cross eyed for looking at each other from so close, but she’d never seen anything so clearly as she saw Oliver in these moments. It did make her smile though, and he kissed that smile, and kept kissing her slowly till she caught her breath, the echoes of her pleasure still fizzing under her skin, making her tremble, as she touched the tip of her nose against his. She was soaked in satisfaction. It clung to her as thick honey might, dripping from every part of her her. From the tips of her fingers to her toes, everything between her bones and her skin, felt both heavy and watery with it.

Oliver smiled back, brushing his lips against her lightly, and then parting her lips and kissing her deep and slow the way she liked best. She could feel the tightly controlled urgency in his kiss though, no matter how hard he tried to hold back. She felt the tension still coiled in his shoulders and realized that he was still hard inside her.

“Oliver?”

He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her neck and rolled them over, her back against the bed, before leaning down to kiss her. Her thighs fell open as Oliver leaned in close, pressing the two of them together as much as he could because that was how he liked it, holding her thigh against him with one hand and sneaking the other arm beneath her back to grasp her shoulder, the back of her neck.

“Okay?” he asked her, voice strained and shaking for all the effort of holding back.

Felicity nodded, kissing the corner of his mouth and then biting his lower lip gently, pulling him for a kiss just as she pulled her knees up and slipped one arm around his middle. She dug her fingers into his back and then his ass. He groaned and pressed his forehead to hers, snapping his hips into her in short, fast strokes, losing track of his movements and his breathing, until he let go with a deep groan, straining against her.

Felicity shivered at the feeling, and at the sight he made, flushed and sweaty, breathing hard as if there was no air left in the room.

Oliver lowered himself half on top of her, catching his breath against her neck as she soothed her hands up and down his back.

“God…” he huffed, ruffling the curls by her ear.

She smiled. “Nope, still Felicity. Though I appreciate the sentiment.” 

He kissed her neck as Felicity combed her hands through his hair. He’d tried very hard not to leave a mark but her skin was still red in patches all along her throat, and even redder lower still.

“Third orgasm of the day,” Felicity said, sounding almost dreamy. “Excellent.”

Oliver laughed, free and unexpected - and right against her ear, making Felicity yelp. He turned to his side and pulled her towards him with the arm that was still between her back and the bed; wrapped her into a fierce hug, even as his whole body shook from laughter, as if she had just said the funniest thing in the world.

It was impossible not to smile.

Felicity shook her shoulder, to dislodge him from where he’d pressed his face against her throat. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m hilarious. Now come up here and kiss me.” 

He did, pressing smiles up her neck all the way to her lips, kissing her slowly.

Yes, excellent.

-

“If you brush them any harder you’re gonna consume them.” Oliver said as he got out of the shower. Felicity just glared at his ass in the mirror and spit out the foam of the toothpaste in the sink.

“I’m expressing my anger,” she warned, pointing her toothbrush at his reflection.

He didn’t look that impressed. “I can tell.”

She gave him the stink eye but there was no heat behind it.

“There _is_ a kind of irony to it, though,” Felicity mumbled.

He sidled up to her and pulled the back of her T-shirt down a bit so that he could kiss the back of her neck, before he grabbed his own toothbrush.

“Strange to be the one who is being hacked for once?” he asked.

 _It was_. “Kinda. How would you feel, being on the business end of an arrow?”

Oliver’s lips ticked up at the corners. “Cautious.”

She grumbled, swishing her mouthwash around as she glanced down at the log file on her tablet, propped right next to the sink.  This had been a RUDY attack and honestly, if she weren’t so pissed at being hacked _of all things_ , she would actually be a little bit impressed. That did not change the fact that she would go after whoever was behind this like a battleship firing at will, but as a hacker, Felicity had to admire their determination - even if they had been stopped at the gate.

They weren’t as good as they thought they were, if they got it in their heads to go after _her_ security protocols. Fake modesty aside - her system was pretty close to perfect and everyone in the business knew it.

But then again, to a hacker that was just like holding up a big “ _try to breach me, it’ll be fun_ ” sign.

Felicity rolled her eyes.

“ _I_ would have found a way in,” she murmured. She’d hacked the un-crackable before.

Oliver chuckled.

“What, I _so_ would have!” she said, and then she realized that she was getting competitive over _this_ , of all things – which was probably what Oliver found so amusing - and swore under her breath.

Oliver’s eyes danced with silent laughter.

She slapped his ass as she walked around him to the cabinet. “Stop laughing at me.”

“I _like_ your competitive streak. It’s fun.”

“It’s annoying. And you know it.”

He did know it. Cheating at Mario Kart that one time had almost ended with him sleeping on the sofa.

Right then though Oliver just grinned. “Keeps things interesting.”

Felicity poked her tongue out at him as she uncapped the Vitamin E oil, enjoying the way his eyes smiled at her even as he kept brushing his teeth. She rubbed the oil along the burns on his lower back, the scars on his shoulders and on every other hurt that had left a mark. She finished up with a kiss right over his heart, Oliver pulled her in for a peppermint-flavored kiss before he let her go.

Felicity walked out of the bathroom and into their walk-in closet. She picked her shoes first - something Oliver found fascinating. He didn’t seem to get the logistics behind why it was so much easier for her to choose an outfit, once she had picked the shoes. Though she did love him just a little bit more for how easily he had granted precedence in their closet for her extensive collection of heels. ( _Going by the way he reacted when she pressed the side of said heels against his ass, on the one or two - okay, so five - memorable occasions she’d fucked him with them on, Oliver was as much a fan of her heels as she was._ )

“I’m going to find them. They _must_ have left a mark or something. Every hacker loves attention,” she  murmured almost as an afterthought, as she picked up her Louis Vuitton hot pink heels, a high-waist pencil skirt, and tried to decide on a blouse.

“Do _you_?” Oliver asked her as he walked in.

“Not really.” But her voice trailed off, as she watched him walk around naked, picking out his clothes for the day.

Felicity shook her head to clear it.

“Not anymore, anyway. Attention is the last thing I want when I hack now.” She stopped in front of her lingerie armoire and thought about it. “But even before that, it was more about wanting to know if I could do something, rather than wanting _other people_ to know I did it. And anyway, it wasn’t until I got to college that the whole ‘ _anything-you-can-do, I-ca- do-better_ ’ brand of arrogance came into it. Around the time I met Cooper.”

She thought about that and winced, remembering herself back then.

“He liked me best when I was mean and winning, so that’s who I was.” She paused, frowned. “That’s not really true, though, is it? I enjoyed it. I think that’s kind of worse, but I’m not sure.”

She knew Oliver was looking at her from the other corner of the closet.

“Yeah, not my best moment.” She said with a shrug as she slipped her underwear on, glad she didn’t have to look Oliver in the eye in that moment. “It’s not even the last time I showed off to get a boy’s attention.”

Oliver’s eyebrows ticked upwards. “Oh?”

She shoved at his shoulder, not moving him an inch. “Oh come on, like you never noticed.”

Oliver just shook his head. Apparently he’d never gotten that memo.

Felicity laughed, slipping on her silk blouse on and tucking its hem inside her skirt. “You walked your sweaty shirtless self all over the lair, preening -”

He huffed. “ _Preening_?”

“- and _I_ did crazy cybernetic acrobatics. Same difference.” She picked out a purple tie she’d gotten for him when they were in Venice with a soft ‘ _this one_ ’. “That really never occurred to you?”

“No. It didn’t seem like you cared to impress anyone.” But there was a small smile on his face now, and Felicity could almost see him going through every memory of her doing something complicated on her computers and painting it with a different color, in light of this new information. “And I was pretty impressed right from the start, so -”

“Oh, you are in rare form today.” she teased as she gathered her hair up and reached out so he could hand him one of the hair-bands that she kept on the counter next to his cuff links.

“I try.”

She finished with her hair and turned around, reaching for him so that she could finish tying is tie. That Oliver could do it very well himself was not the point.

“So you just _had_ to stand _this_ close to my station, breathing over my neck when I hacked something?”

“That’s different. I find you being the best at what you do very… attractive; I didn’t think you were aware of it.”

Felicity snorted. “I wasn’t! But I gave it my best shot.”

Oliver smiled and leaned down to kiss her, lingering against her lips a long moment.

They got through their morning routine a little faster than usual, opting for fruit and yogurt for breakfast ( _and whatever gross kale mix Oliver drank_ ), because Felicity was so desperate to get her hands on a secure terminal at Palmer Tech and see the damage for herself.

“Oh, I talked to Samantha last night -” She bit half of the last strawberry before offering the other half to Oliver. “She said it was totally okay for Will to spend a couple more days over this weekend, so the camping is a go.” She caught herself and frowned. “Is it weird that I’m starting to talk like this _out_ of the bunker too?”

Oliver shrugged. “Force of habit, I guess.”

“I’m not sure family vacations and military jargon mix well. I find it sends mixed signals.”

He grabbed his keys. “We sure plan vacations using military tactics though, don’t we?”

Felicity shrugged. He did have a point there.

She helped Oliver into his coat and then he did the same for her, putting the scarf around her neck as she grabbed the coffee.

“The only upside to hiking is going to be catching up to my neglected cardio. And breaking out the fuzzy pink socks again.”

“You worked out last night. And this morning.”

He sounded especially pleased about that.

Felicity turned and slipped a hand under his jacket, holding it open so that she could get a better look at his chest.

“Do I have something on my shirt?” Oliver asked, looking down with a frown.

“No.” Felicity answered in all seriousness. “I was just checking to make sure you didn’t wear the ‘ _she came twice ask me how_ ’ T-shirt under it.”

Oliver poked her side, exactly where he knew she was most ticklish, and she moved away from him with a loud laugh.

“And it was more than twice, if I remember it right. Which I do.”

“Oho, you better watch that: if your head keeps inflating, you won’t be able to get it through the elevator doors.”

She’d turned her back to him to lock the door behind them so she only heard his laughter, but she could imagine the look in his face perfectly. It was going to be a good day, she knew it.

Once in their building’s underground parking lot, Oliver leaned down to give her a ‘see you later’ kiss before walking to his car.

Just as she was about to turn and do the same, Felicity felt him pull at the lapel of her coat. “You’ll still make it home on time tonight, right?”

He had his _serious face_ on.

Felicity pursed her lips. “I’m not gonna bail on my own birthday party. I’m socially awkward, not rude… well, not much. Not on purpose.” She rectified hastily.

“And because Donna would probably find you even if you went to the moon.”

“Shrieking at a decibel only dogs can hear, yeah. That too.” But then she softened, leaned against him a bit. “I’ve never bailed on you so far, have I?”

“No, you haven’t.” His smile widened. “Think about the surprise we have for you.”

Felicity made a face. “I dunno, I’m not a big fan of surprises.”

“You’ve liked mine so far.”

“Hmm… ” Felicity pretended to think about it a moment and had to squirm away from him with a laugh when the hand had had been on her waist curled to tickle her side.

She remembered the diamond ring hidden in the dessert, his most memorable surprise so far. Remembered how much they’d laughed later - after the ‘ _yes!_ ’ and the ‘ _you want to get married so we should talk about the fact that we both know our lives are waiting for us back in Starling, whether we get back to it as vigilantes or not._ ’. And the small fight after that, and the making up… it had been a long night.

She still insisted hiding a ring meant for her in anything that had chocolate in it was a tactical mistake.

 _‘Have you never_ seen _me eat dessert?’_

_‘It was in the frosting – your fork clicked against it before you even took the first bite!’_

_‘Still! It was a choking hazard!’_

“Okay,” she agreed. “I love _your_ surprises.” And then more softly.”I will make it, I promise.”

-

“Good morning, Daniel,” Felicity greeted as she walked past the security guard at the entrance of the lobby.

“Good morning Mrs. Queen.”

Her walk across the ground floor and into the elevator was filled with polite greetings and nods, but upon reaching the IT department on the twenty-first floor they became less perfunctory and friendlier. Felicity had made it no secret that she was just as fond of her old department now as she had ever been.

Her brain-child was the Cyber-Tech division though, and with the way the stock had been going in the last months, she was going to green-light the expansion of Applied Sciences soon enough as well. What Felicity _really_ wanted was to turn the last ten floors of Palmer Tech into R&D labs. Curtis would love that. 

The thought of it made her smile as she walked through the cubicle-filled floor of the main IT floor. The very last one of them, between the wall and the floor-to-ceiling windows was her objective this morning. That was Amanda Jackson’s terminal, one of her brightest new hires.

Dennings had almost had a fit when Felicity had proposed promoting a 25-year-old IT girl to Head of Cyber Security, but Felicity had just calmly passed him a glass of water and continued as if nothing happened. More often than not she preferred a conciliatory approach with the board, but on this she was not prepared to give a single inch, which was why it had taken her awhile to get them to approve her new staff. To _approve_ them, not to choose them. Felicity had chosen them the moment she had restructured the IT department, and Amanda was one of the best – someone who Felicity was quite proud to have snatched right under Kord Industries’ nose.

Amanda’s smooth brown skin and wide eyes made her look even younger than she was, but Felicity knew that beneath the slick professional suits, Amanda, like Felicity, was a hacker.

She’d never said so, of course; Felicity could just _tell_.

Amanda’s skill wasn’t obvious. According to Dennis’ tech advisors she’d never done anything worthy of notice, but that was because they didn’t know what to look for. Jonathan Price, Stanford class of ‘05, freelancing Tech Advisor, was convinced there was nothing of value to look for in the first place _._ It was true that Amanda had never cracked the IRS D-base or the FBI’s defensive protocols, but the way she went about solving systemic problems was simplistic, elegant. Their implementation was always flawless. She was immediately able to discern what information was important and what was negligible. As far as Felicity was concerned, she needn’t look any further.

Felicity set her bag down on the desk without a sound and glanced at the screens Amanda was locked in on. The other girl didn’t react at all, but Felicity had expected that.

“Huh, you’re running Gnome.”

Amanda startled, eyes wide with surprise when she looked up.

“I'm actually on KDE myself,” Felicity continued. “I know this desktop environment is supposed to be better, but you know what they say. Old habits die hard.”

“Miss Smo- I mean, Mrs. Queen! So sorry. Good morning. I’m -”

“Amanda Jackson. I remember; I interviewed you myself.” Felicity extended her hand and the other girl shook it. She had a firm, warm grip.

Amanda’s smile became more relaxed. “Yes, you did.”

“You’re the one that detected the attack last night.”

Amanda blinked. “Yes. But that’s because I was on call.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Amanda. Plenty of people will be _so_ ready to do that for you, trust me.” Felicity saw the head of IT heading towards them and gave Amanda a sly smile. “Hello, Roger. I would like Amanda and her case supervisor to join you for the executive meeting after lunch today.”

Roger looked puzzled, but he shouldn’t have. “I am quite familiar with the case, I assure you.”

“I don’t doubt it. But Amanda was the one that stopped the attack last night and she has all the first-hand data, so I would like to hear from her as well. Thank you.”

More like, she wanted the board to hear from Amanda directly, but Roger didn’t have to know that.

Felicity waved at Amanda and left, calm as she’d come in. 

* * *

_[1] ‘Out of the depths’: From Psalm 130 – where the expression is a metaphor of total misery. Deep anguish makes the psalmist feel "like those who go down to the pit" (Psalm 143:7). Robert Alter points out that '..."the depths" are an epithet for the depths of the sea, which in turn is an image of the realm of death'._

_[2] Salma Daeera,[Salt](http://tristamateer.com/post/143389148549/in-front-of-my-mother-and-my-sisters-i-pretend)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An: this is only the firts part of this opening chapter - cause the whole thing was 12.000 words so posting it as one seemed a bit much. Thank you and i hope u enjoyed. Let me know if you can ;) 


	2. 6∞∞ mILEs of hAPPineSS (ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because I’m generally an impatient asshole, and because i forgot that author’s note was at the end of this chapter, and not the one before this, i forgot to give proper thanks. which i'm now going to remedy. 
> 
> a big, huge thank you to Lexi (@eilowyn1 over at tumblr), who was my beta for this story, who VOLUNTARILY came to work with me - you have to admire that kind of bravery - and without whom this story would not nowhere near as neat or classy. and thank you, as ever, to bisexualfelicity, who actually listens to me go on and on about plots until i have an actual story. 
> 
> thank you to the staff and participants who make the OFBB possible. this would have been my entry but it became clear that i wouldn't be able to finish it on time because of multiple reasons, not least among them my very poor planning abilities, so i couldn't stay on. but i'm very grateful that the will to participate made me write as far as i did.
> 
> thank you also, to arrow’s writers, who enrage me so much with lack of pov for Felicity’s story arc and emotions, that i felt like i had to write the whole fucking thing myself.

  ** _6∞∞ mILEs of hAPPineSS_** (ii)

>   _I kneel into a dream where I_
> 
> _am good & loved. I am   _  
>  _good. I am loved. My hands have made_  
>  _some good mistakes. They can always_  
>    
>  _make better ones._
> 
> _[Natalie Wee](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fnatalieweepoetry.com%2F&t=ZWUwZTU5MWJhODRkYjE4Mjc2ZDlhZjI2ZjI3NDZjMWY5ZDM3N2Y3MixoOVNHRng0aQ%3D%3D&b=t%3ATr-z0OfaI4OrAsmeWEqHoA&m=1), “Least of All,” [Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwordsdance.com%2Four-bodies-other-fine-machines-by-natalie-wee%2F&t=NDQwMzdiNzVkMjBhNTgxMmU0Mjc0YzliNDgxNTQ2NWNiMjI3ZmYzYSxHRlpSZnVMRA%3D%3D&b=t%3ATr-z0OfaI4OrAsmeWEqHoA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fnatalieweepoetry.com%2Fpost%2F158941641164%2Fwe-have-always-known-how-to-be&m=0)_

Felicity started to think she had bitten off far more than she could chew when she went through the threshold of the loft and the shockwave of the shouted “ _Surprise_!” almost blew her back out of it. She’d known about the party, but there had been plenty to be surprised about: the whole place was decorated with colorful balloons and flowers and she was pretty sure she’d never seen so many people in the loft at once!

Her mother came forward to hug her first, her hold so tight Felicity was sure she felt her ribs bend a little. She eyed Oliver over Donna’s shoulder, but he just grinned, totally unrepentant. Walter congratulated her next, with a big smile so sincere it made Felicity’s eyes sting a little. That’s how she spent the first hour of the party, going around the room saying hello to everyone.

After, Felicity took a moment to sit down on one of the chairs near the counter and just took stock of the room.

Walter and Thea were chatting up happily by the food table. Felicity didn’t know what Thea was telling him about but he looked about proud enough to burst as she loaded his plate with finger food. Laurel had told her about Sara’s promise to stop by in 2017 to come celebrate, though they had both neglected to mention that Sara’s crew would come along as well. Mick Rory bellowing “ _happy birthday, Ponytail_ ” before he headed to the bar had been… disconcerting. But also kinda hilarious.

Barry and Iris were talking to her mother, who had stopped flitting around the room like an overgrown butterfly, making sure everyone was having a good time. She was leaning against Captain Lance’s arm now and smiling at the newly-engaged couple. Going by the look on their faces, halfway between embarrassment and hidden laughter, they were gaining the full benefit of Donna Smoak’s wisdom. Felicity cringed. Yes, the ability to make everything sound dirty was in fact coded into the Smoak DNA. Unlike her daughter, though, it never occurred Donna to be embarrassed about what came out of her mouth.

And yet, despite it all, Felicity bit back a smile. These days she was mostly glad that her mother was around.

Nyssa was talking to Cisco, who looked at her with wide-eyed excitement and open admiration. Felicity hadn’t been sure introducing the two had been the best idea; there was just something in the way the Demon’s Head was smiling that made Felicity think she was armed.

_Then again, when wasn’t she?_

Sara sidled up to them and linked hands with her girlfriend, pulling pulled her away towards the balcony doors. They stepped out, both grinning, just before Nyssa leaned down for a kiss.

Cisco’s disappointment didn't last long because Curtis found him almost immediately after, the two of them geeking out about her dad. Noah seemed to take it all very good-naturedly, answering questions with the polite indulgence of a minor celebrity.

Felicity snorted, rolling her eyes. She hadn’t decided yet how she felt about him being there, even though she’d known from the start he would be. But since her reaction hadn’t been to immediately say no, then she’d let him stay on the guest list.

 _Baby steps_.

As the evening went on, Thea talked Roy, Amaya and Evelyn into cleaning up the dining room table for a poker game. For a moment Felicity debated warning the others she _might_ have taught Thea a few tricks, but thought better of it when Rip Hunter, Jax and Mick Rory joined the table at the last minute.

It was going to be fun watching Thea wipe the smirk of the faces of men twice her size.

As if hearing her thoughts, Thea turned to her and winked. Felicity tried not to laugh.

Caitlin and Ray seemed so engaged by their conversation, probably on the potential Ray’s nanites had in bioengineering and medicine that they’d forgotten all about the cake on their plates. Felicity had no idea what Rory, Nate, and Joe were talking about but she did notice Joe’s eyes continuously returning to the corner of the couch in front of him, where Wally and Jessie were making out. He threw a cushion at them at one point, startling both of them; which was a shame, but their faces were hilarious.

Baby Sara and J.J.[1] almost crashed into Wells and Stein on their way to where Oliver, Rene and Lyla were standing by the fireplace, their happy giggles sounding through the loft over the soft jazz music. They ran to Rene, taking his hands and dragging him away with them. He grinned, following them with only a token resistance. Just then Oliver caught her eye, his smile softening just a little. Felicity winked at him. It was the closest she could get to a ‘thank you’ for the time being, since she was pretty sure that sneaking out of your own party to do obscene things with your husband in the back of your car was considered bad manners.

“How’s our birthday girl doing?”

Felicity turned with a smile that got even brighter when John set a fresh glass of wine in front of her.

“My hero!”

He sat down on the stool next to hers and they clinked glasses. The crisp taste of the cool wine was delicious.

“Beautiful necklace.” John said, nodding at her throat.

Felicity’s hand automatically went to the silver David’s star she’d unwrapped from a velvet box just an hour ago.

“Thanks. Oliver made it.”

Digg nodded. “Yeah, thought so. Having a good time?”

Felicity couldn't help a little laugh as she dangled one foot back and forth on the stool. It was almost like she was embarrassed to admit it.

“I am.”

John’s eyes were warm, and not surprised. “You didn’t expect to?”

“No I did. I just… It’s been awhile since I’ve celebrated my birthday like this. It’s usually a lot quieter.”

He should know; he’d been there for it a couple of times.

“Well it’s just friends and family here.” John reminded her, knowing exactly what the words meant to her.

“Right.”

John bumped her shoulder with his gently. Felicity leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder for a long moment, the cheerful buzz of the people around her washing over her like a quiet wave.

“Have you seen Laurel?” Felicity asked, looking around the room again. “I think I missed her earlier.”

“I saw her with Ted by the fire escape some five minutes ago.”

Felicity grinned. “Laurel and Ted, sitting in a tree, K- I - S- S- I- N- G.”

Digg made a sound that was something between a snort and a chuckle.

“You’re rolling your eyes, I can tell.”

“No, I’m not.” He sounded perfectly serious too.

She huffed. “Liar liar pants on fire.”

“My daughter sings that rhyme.”

“That’s cause we’re both brilliant.”

John took a long gulp from his beer. “Never doubted it.”

Multiple dismayed groans rose from the poker table, which had accumulated an audience, now. Felicity looked over to see a very pleased Thea collecting her winnings.

“Who do you think will be the first one to figure it out?” She asked Digg casually.

“I don’t know about Amaya, but there’s no way Roy, Rip and Mick haven’t sat down with someone playing a rigged game before.”

Felicity rubbed her cheek against John’s arm to get more comfortable. “So has Oliver and he _still_ hasn’t figured out you can count cards too.”

Digg snorted softly, probably remembering the summer after the Undertaking and the hours they’d spent playing.

“That’s cause my poker face is flawless, Smoak, and you pretending not to have one distracts him.”

“Thea’s poker face is pretty good too,” Felicity countered calmly.

Digg pursed his lips and they both watched the impenetrable look on Thea Queen face as she considered her hand. The similarities between Thea and Oliver were rarely as apparent as when they concentrated on something, but Thea had a competitive streak Oliver didn’t give into as often.

“Quite a remarkable group of people you have gathered here.”

At the sound of Noah’s voice, the warm lethargy that had been seeping into her evaporated. Felicity straightened on her seat, taking a breath before she turned to face him.

When she did, Noah smiled at her.

“Happy birthday, Felicity.”

The memory of the exact time she’d heard those words last from him flashed in her mind and was gone in a blink.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll go make sure my kids haven’t tied Rene to a chair again.” John said gently, laying a hand on Felicity’s shoulder before leaving.

Noah watched him go before his eyes turned to her again.

“I especially enjoyed meeting Doctor Wells and Professor Stein.” He continued. “They are even better company in person, and they had only wonderful things to say about you.”

Felicity fidgeted a little with her glass of wine. “I help out at Star labs sometimes. And with some of Ray’s tech, which Professor Stein is familiar with.”

She wasn’t sure she liked the way he was looking at her in that moment. Like he knew exactly what she was doing.

“You have made loyal friends of the people in this room, but then again, that doesn’t surprise me.  ”

Felicity opened her mouth to say something, but there was a resounding silence in her head, so she closed it again, and gulped her heart down, trying to stay steady.

Her father’s smile softened into something just a touch wistful. “I am very happy you invited me tonight, Felicity. Thank you.”

Felicity took a breath, nodded. “I’m glad I invited you too.”

And as she said it, she believed it.

“Good.” She knew she didn’t imagine the elation in his voice, on his face as he shifted his feet and straightened. “That’s - I’m glad.”

Felicity hopped off the tall stool, smoothing her dress down.

“So, what do you think about my Cyber Security plans for Palmer tech?”

That smile he gave her was more familiar. “I think they look brilliant. And I’d love to test your security protocols.”

Felicity almost laughed. Yeah, that part she could have imagined.

-

She was busy pretending to arrange the fruits in the wide serving plates – which is about the only thing she was qualified to do in the kitchen – when she felt his hands on her waist. Felicity closed her eyes and leaned her head back on his chest, taking a deep breath.

“Everything all right?”

The corner of her lips ticked up. The chances that Oliver might have missed her exchange with her father were slim to none, especially going by the way he kept holding on to her, like he was waiting for something.

Felicity turned, smoothed her hands down his chest. “I think so.”

He watched her carefully, with eyes that knew her well enough not to miss anything. She let him look.

Nothing about her father was easy and Oliver knew that, but she didn’t want to dwell on Noah Kuttler anymore. So she leaned into him, linked her hands at the small of his back and tilted her chin up for a kiss. There was still a small frown on his face just before he kissed her, so Felicity deepened the kiss with a slow slide of her tongue in his mouth. She didn't even have to pull him down, he practically folded himself around her, holding her with both arms so tight the tips of her toes left the floor for a moment.

“Oh my God! You have _guests_ , cut it out!” Thea’s voice sounded way too close for comfort.

They separated with a soft gasp, and Felicity hid her laughter against Oliver's neck, both arms tight around him for a moment before he loosened his hold. She couldn't help a little gasp as she slid down his body and on her feet again.

She gulped and they looked at each other for a heavy, charged moment.

“You know, despite how many trained people there are out there, I’m pretty sure I could sneak us out without any of them ever noticing.” He suggested.

Felicity was pretty sure she couldn't have helped her small whimper if she’d wanted to. “Not that it’s not tempting-”

“It is.” Oliver reiterated, his hand sliding down the curve of her ass.

“God, _so tempting_. _But_ I was warned, very sternly and by your sister, that to do that would be really rude. And judging by her tone, she was planning consequences.”

 “We can think about consequences later,” and he pulled her in for another kiss.

Felicity gave in for a moment, before she pulled away. “You are so bad for my long-term thinking.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t sound like you’re sorry.”

“You don't sound like you mind.” And going by Oliver’s smile, neither was he.

“That’s ‘cause half my brain-functions just fizzled.”

He laughed, right against her lips before he kissed them again, light and sweet, both hands cupping her face. He rubbed the tip of his nose against hers, one of those gestures that was so theirs it felt almost like they’d made up a whole new language just to say ‘i love you’ to each other silently.

She leaned into him, pressed the side of her face into his chest and took a deep breath as his hands came around her. She could smell his soap through the softness of his shirt and her favorite aftershave.

“Oliver.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you for the party.”

His arms tightened around her. The kiss he pressed to the top of her head was so light she thought maybe she imagined it. But she knew she hadn’t. He started rocking them gently back and forth then, and that was when Felicity had to bite her lip so she wouldn’t laugh, because her heart suddenly felt like it would drop in her hands at any moment it was so full, and it was a feeling too big to contain.

Somewhere behind her, she heard John laughing and baby Sara’s happy squeal. She was surrounded by her friends, and in the arms of the man she loved, his heart drummed a familiar beat beneath her cheek. Her mother was on the sofa, smiling at a smitten Quentin, all her friends were relatively safe and happy and the city hadn’t tried to implode on them yet.

It was all so _good_. 

_Perfect…_

A feeling came over her then, the way foreboding does: not there one moment and then suddenly in her throat. Strange and sharp, a sense of knowing without knowing; as if she could lift off the corner of reality by her fingertips and look what laid underneath.

But then Oliver’s hand slipped under her hair, cupping the back of her neck gently, and the feeling was gone. Like fog dispersing under a bright spring sun, it melted.

“What?”

His voice was low and soft. One of his hands traced the length of her back, as if he’d felt her fractional disquiet and was trying to smooth it out. His eyebrows ticked upward, encouraging an answer.

Felicity bit her lip, shook her head just a little.

“Nothing… I feel lucky.”  She whispered it, almost as if it was a secret. It hadn’t been so long since an admission like this in the middle of their tumultuous lives would had felt like a jinx. As if happiness was a truth too fragile, anything more than a whisper and it would be taken from them.

Oliver grinned back, his arms tightening around her.

-

“Felicity, are you sure? It’s late.”

She didn’t think Oliver wanted to hear another ‘yes’ ( _or see her eye roll_ ) so she leaned over the couch to grab her bag ( _instead of, say, walking around to the other side like a normal person_ ). Her bare feet slipped on the floor as she strained and it was Oliver taking her arm that kept her from face-planting into the soft cushions of the couch.

Felicity straightened, grinned at him and blew a wisp of loose hair away from her face.

“I can stop by the bunker after dropping off Thea and bring you the files,” Oliver insisted.

“ _Or_ \- you drop _me_ off on your way to Thea’s; I set up the new searches for this Jonathan Sheen that Rene mentioned-”

“You can do that from here,” Oliver reminded her, extending his arm for Felicity to hold on to as she put her heels back on.

“I _can_ , but you know I don’t like to access the bunker system off-site,” Felicity said, shaking her hair off her face as she looked up at him. “You can pick up me up on your way back. Perfect plan. Let’s go.”

Oliver sighed, but she didn’t need to pull the birthday-girl card – which Felicity was finding out was fun – because when she grabbed his hand and tugged, he followed her. But then he took a quick step and wrapped his arm around her middle, pressing his chest against her back. “If I find you asleep to your station again -”

Felicity’s lips pulled into a moue. “One time. It happened _one_ time and I just can’t live it down…”

She knew it hadn’t happened one time.

Oliver’s raised eyebrow kinda hinted that he knew that too.

Felicity rolled her eyes and kept walking, pulling him with her. “Fine it happened like… three times,” she allowed. Admittedly it wasn’t easy to walk with him plastered behind her, but it was fun.

“Four, if we count last week.” Oliver reminded her.

“Guys come _on_!” Thea called from the door. “I have a lot of virtues, but patience is _not_ one of ‘em.”

“We are not counting last week.” Felicity said firmly.

Thea side-eyed them as Oliver closed the door behind himself.

“Why not? You were sleeping with your head resting on your hand -” Thea started.

“I was resting my eyes!” Felicity informed her just as the elevator doors slid closed. Oliver nudged his sister but Thea just elbowed him back in the ribs, making him wince.

“- and the reason I know that is because when your hand slipped and you almost smacked -”

“ _Yes_! We _all_ know the details, thank you,” Felicity snapped, feeling herself flush.

Which was how they spent the ten minute drive from the loft to the bunker – with the Queens teasing her and Felicity teasing back. ( _In one memorable occasion with Felicity smacking Oliver’s  ass when they got out of the elevator._

 _‘I_ heard _that!’_

_‘So pretend you didn’t.’_

_‘Oh my god!’_ )

The staccato of her heels echoed around the empty, silent lair. Felicity walked straight to her station, humming ‘ _What a wonderful world_ ’ happily out of tune. She narrowed her eyes at the manila folder by her computers, as if it was their fault she’d forgotten them there. This time around, shoving those papers in her bag was the first thing Felicity did after powering up her system.

Felicity sat down, sighed and started typing the moment the screens turned on.

She never really did tell, but this kind of silence - broken only by the humming of a powerful machine beneath her fingers and the whirling of the servers’ cooling system’s fans - was what she was most used to. It was her home level and it always felt comforting.

But it was also a kind of safety she had… not left behind exactly, but outgrown.

Grown around it?

Felicity smiled, thinking about the all her friends in one place and how the hum of that togetherness was not so different from the one she was hearing now. The thought made her smile.

She was just setting the search parameters when she the crack of a door opening from the locker rooms.

Felicity froze.

Lightning-fast, she went through all possibilities. She had not received any notification for a breach in the system, which meant that it was either another member of the team in there…  or someone _very_ uninvited.

Hand hovering over the panic button on her keyboard and heart beating hard against her chest, Felicity arched her neck to the side hoping to catch sight of whoever it was in there. The only one of the team that she hadn’t personally seen leaving her apartment happily fed and slightly tipsy was Laurel, who had left early. Felicity wanted to call out, but that wouldn’t be very smart.

 _Oh, screw it_. “Hello? Laurel?”

No sound came back at her for a very long moment, but just before Felicity reached under the table to wrap her hand around the hidden weapon there, someone turned the corner.

“ _John_! Oh my god!” She sagged on her chair and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Felicity!”

She stood up and walked towards him, smacked his arm the second he was within reach.

“Don’t _do that_! I almost had a heart attack! And ouch, every part of your arm feels like the tip of my elbow.”

He looked about as shocked to see her as she was to see him however. Which was… weird.

“Felicity… what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean what am _I_ – I told you I had forgotten some PT memos in here. What are _you_ doing here? I thought you were going home.” Her words trailed off as she looked him up and down with a frown. “Were you wearing that sweater the whole time?”

But then Felicity noticed the rigid set of his shoulders, the shuttered look on his face, the way he kept his hands balled on his sides. There was a small muscle ticking in his jaw that showed up only when the situation was going to shit.

Felicity touched his forearm, confused and apprehensive. “John, is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I just… needed to talk to you for a minute.”

That sounded like a painfully lame lie, but Felicity followed John to the conference table nonetheless. Digg had never been the alarmist kind - that used to be more Felicity’s style. After all the things they’d gone through though, she had started becoming better at handling high-stress situations with the same eerie stillness John and Oliver practiced. The kind that was more like the calm of a bomb than that of a person.

“I know how this is going to sound, but I just need you to listen to me anyway, all right.” John started. He sounded so hesitant it was unlike him.

“Alright.”

John took her hands in his. “What’s the last thing you remember?” 

Felicity frowned. “What?”

“The very last thing, before you woke up this morning?” John clarified, eyes serious and fixed unblinkingly on hers. “What do you remember?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes!” John said impatiently.

This wasn't a joke. No one on her team would dare joke like this, especially not in that tone of voice, least of all John. But it was so _ridiculous_ , as far as questions went. And this was saying something, coming from the same woman who had once made Oliver ask a man the color of his shoes while on full on Arrow growly face.

“I… I was _here_ , with the rest of you. We were searching for leads on the new drug rig that we’ve been hearing about.” This made zero sense and she was getting impatient. “ _John_!”

“Keep going.”

Felicity groaned. “I worked on the few searches I already had running – which turnout up nothing, by the way. No prints, no DNA on any of the shooting scenes. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Ran some scans while you guys were out. Then I went home with Oliver and… And if there is a point in the vicinity, I’d love for you to get to it, cause this is freaking me out.”

John ran a hand down his face, as if he’d lost all words. The sight of him hollowed out a small space just beneath Felicity’s stomach and a strange heaviness settled there. Just as she was about to ask again, this time without any kind of pussyfooting around, John’s head snapped up.

Felicity turned to see what he was looking at.

“Oliver!” Relief wound itself around his name so tightly that it was hard to tell them apart.

She got up and took two steps towards him, but on the third Felicity had to stop because he standing there like he was afraid of her coming any closer. She could have sworn he almost took a step back, if it was not such a ridiculous thing to think.

She looked between Oliver and John, feeling dread start to make room for anger.

“If you two don’t come clean with me right this second, I’m slamming that panic button and bringing the whole team here!”

“No, don’t do that. Please,” Oliver said immediately. “It’s just that this is a bit… strange.”

“After super-soldiers and dark magic I really think it’s safe to say that my bar for weird is kinda high, Oliver.”

“Oh, trust me, this is weirder,” John deadpanned.

Felicity looked to Oliver for some kind of explanation. He reached out as if to touch her, but then seemed to think better of it, and shifted on his feet instead.

Felicity frowned at him. She had not seen this kind of unsure body language from him since - since…

Her next breath made her heart ache sharply and it felt so real that she instinctively rubbed her hand over her breastbone to soothe it. The sudden twinge distracted her from a memory that had felt right at her fingertips, but then managed to slip away.

“Felicity… if you think about it, you’ll remember, ” Oliver said softly, eyes wide and full of something that looked like hurt. He took a careful step towards her, close enough that if he reached out, he could touch her. But he didn’t. “Try. _Please_.”

“Remember _what_?” she asked tightly. His fingers were balled in a fist by his side, so she grabbed his wrist with both hands and held on tight. “Oliver, neither of you is making any sense.”

Oliver blinked fast and if she didn’t know better she would think he was overwhelmed. It was right there in his eyes: the hurt she didn’t know the origin of, the guilt.

_What…_

“This isn’t real, Felicity,”  he whispered. But despite his soft voice, every word felt like a black stone falling. “All this… the city, Palmer Tech, your life here… it’s all a dream. A simulation.”

The warm feeling that she had been swimming in all day like Bambi walking through clouds, that same feeling of stubborn positivity that had protected her until this very moment, faded as if it had been smoke. The nothingness she found beneath it scared her so much, Felicity took a step backwards before she knew what she was doing.

“We were kidnapped by… god that’s insane, trust me I know, but we were kidnapped by aliens,” Digg said from his seat, so seriously that she could have never have mistaken it for a joke. Digg didn’t joke about the impossible. “We woke up, you didn’t. You’re lying on a hospital bed at Star Labs right now, sedated and _dreaming_. You _have_ to wake up!”

Felicity felt her brains failure to wrap around the situation like a _404 Error Page Not Found_ window popping up. The confusion and fear must have show on her face because Oliver reached for her again.

That was, she would realize later, his last mistake. Because just then Felicity’s eyes fixed on his right hand, where his thumb and forefinger were furiously rubbing together. She couldn’t look away from his scarred knuckles ( _she swore she knew all the tiny marks there_ )… and his bare fingers.

“Felicity!”

But John’s voice came to her as if she were underwater.

_What do I do, what do I do, what… Think damnt it!_

She let out a slow long breath and slowly stepped out of her heels, ignoring the puzzled looks Oliver and John gave her. The cold tiles against her bare soles made her shiver, but she knew it wasn’t the cold. She was shaking, but tried to hide it by pacing back and forth in tight circles.

“Okay you were right, that is not just weird _er_. This is _the_ weirdest. You realize that, right?” She looked at them both in the face by turns. “That you sound certifiable?”

John got up and immediately Felicity took a step back from them. Oliver went completely still and John shrunk back, showing her his open palms, as if to placate her.

“We’re not here to hurt you.” John said slowly.

“So it shouldn’t be a problem for you to stay _over there_.” She gestured vaguely in front of her. “While I stay over here. Right?”

Oliver didn’t move, but his eyes were knowing. “Felicity, don’t do it.”

She knew that was her last chance so she turned around and _ran_.

John called after her. She’d expected to hear steps chasing after her but she didn’t.

Felicity reached her station and slammed her hand on the panic button before she grabbed the small 9mm Luger under her desk and turned around, safety off and already aiming it with both hands.

Oliver and John – whoever those people standing there, wearing the faces of her best friend and her husband – were just a bit further away from where she’d left them. They hadn’t chased after her, hadn’t drawn any weapons on her.

_Oh, what the fuck is going on?_

She had some indecision as to where to aim between the two of them but the moment the one who looked like Oliver took a step forward, Felicity fired a warning shot right by his feet that made the three of them flinch.

“ _Don’t move_.”

“We won’t. Just don’t kill us,” John said in a forced calm voice.

It wasn’t John though. It _wasn't_.

 _Aliens._ She snorted _. Yeah right._

“It is really us, Felicity,” the Oliver who was not Oliver said, and in that _tone_! That gentle way he talked to her when he- God…

“Who are you people?”

“You know who we are.” John told her calmly. “I know you’re scared, but it’s really us.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Feli-”

“ _No! It’s not_!” she repeated, louder, her anger and her fear almost making her stomp her foot.

Did they think she was stupid?

“John could have come here before I did, but _you_ couldn’t have. You’re both wearing different clothes!” And the way they both looked at her was all wrong. Felicity didn’t even want to think about that one. “And you don’t have your ring?”

Oliver, who wasn’t Oliver blanched, the look on his face completely wrecked and so _familiar_ that Felicity felt close to tears for no reason at all.

“Felicity…”

She shook her head and tried to breathe through a throat that felt completely clogged by fear. “No. Get on the floor.”

“Felicity you have you _listen_ , please!”

“ _On the floor,_ _now_!” she finally yelled.

It was just then that the first arrow zipped through the air. The two pretending to be Oliver and John dove out of the way and that was just when everything started going to shit in a mighty spectacular fashion.

“Get back!” Oliver yelled as he charged, putting himself between her and the danger.

Felicity did not need to be told twice.

She scrambled off the platform and took cover behind the steel tables of med bay, the sounds of the fighting, flesh hitting flesh and the grunts of pain following her. She was supposed to use that momentary cover to make her way out, but she couldn’t.

Instead Felicity got a better grip of her gun and looked around the corner of the table.

She wanted to do something to help Oliver out of this, but the moment she caught sight of them, she was frozen.

A faint rumble started in the distance, as if a subway train was going past. Which was impossible.

The man with John’s face was nowhere to be seen and Oliver… They were both such a blur of movement and violence that she could hardly keep track of either of them. The only way she could tell her Oliver apart from… whoever the other man was, was the fact that she knew her husband was wearing a grey shirt, and the other was dressed in a black. The more she saw of them fighting thought, the more afraid she became. And the more afraid she was, the more brutal Oliver’s hits became, giving the other one no quarter, as if he could really sense her fear. 

The rumble grew, like an earthquake, shaking the tables, her computers. She looked up to the ceiling at the flickering lights.

_Get out, get out!_

It was all she could think, but she couldn’t leave without Oliver.

Felicity started forward, not even knowing what she wanted to do but unable to stand being still. She remembered those eternal moments in the foundry when she’d thought she would be buried alive under a ton of heavy brick and steel and her heart almost beat its way out of her chest.

“Oliver!”

She didn't want to distract him but they had to get out now!

Oliver kicked the other man straight in the gut, throwing him down, before he turned to her.

“Felicity, get out!”

The rumble grew, a stampede coming closer about to trample her under a thousand heavy feet. The memory of something huge was hurdling towards her, but she couldn't concentrate enough. The noise was too loud, the sounds of violence about her too dense to _think_.

She could see it, how each one of Oliver’s hits was a lethal blow just waiting to land and she couldn’t _stand it_.

“Oliver! Oliver, _stop_!”

Why? Why should he stop?

She didn’t know but she knew he had to.

But Oliver wasn't stopping and the other man wasn't able to keep up. They both had the same feral look on their faces, but one of them would die and the thought of it made Felicity shake.

There was something she was missing. Something important! She could feel it.

But then Oliver stabbed the stranger through the chest with one of his arrows, and whoever he was… he fell.

An unnatural silence pressed against her ears as if all sounds but for her heartbeat had been sucked out of existence.

She couldn't breathe…

“ _No_!”  The scream that ripped from her scrapped her throat raw.

As if someone had pulled the rug from under her, she fell. As her knees hit the floor, everything came rushing back. The screaming, the shaking. The noise of a building rattling loose where it stood.

He was dead. He was right there, across the lair from her, dying, wide blue eyes fixed on hers…

_Oliver…_

The cupboards around her flied open as if the room had been depressurized. Drawers shot out, the drugs and scalpels and pincers inside them exploding outward. The glass cases of the team’s costumes exploded in a million pieces of glass. She barely felt the sting of their sharp shower cutting into her side as she curled into herself with a scream.

She didn't even know why she was crying and why it hurt. But it did.

It did.

“Felicity…”

It was a whisper, but it wasn't. Inside her head it echoed like a scream in an empty room.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, at the stranger wearing Oliver’s face who was lying on the floor, a pool of red growing wider around him.

She looked right at him, and it was Oliver’s eyes she saw.

Felicity sobbed, straight from the soul, terrified and helpless. She couldn't move as the ground kept rumbling, the whole room shaking apart.

Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, and even though she didn’t care anymore she was still scared. But then she saw John looking at her, bleeding from a deep cut to his forehead, eyes wide and desperate. And even though she knew it wasn’t really John, she couldn’t manage being afraid of him.

“Felicity, this is _not real_!” He said to her. “You can stop it!”

But she pushed him away, because the ceiling was cracking and the walls were imploding all around them. Because she didn't know what to do and she just wanted it to be over. She fell down and didn’t get back up again.

She’d made a mistake, a huge mistake and now everything was ruined.

Oliver walked towards her among the mayhem whirling around them as if it wasn't there at all. He was looking at John who was not John, who kept telling her to wake up.

Just behind them, Felicity heard her name being whispered one last time, but she was too scared to look back. She _couldn’t_! She could not! And she didn’t have to, to know that he was dead.

A hole opened up in her chest, like a fresh cut that hurt so badly it made her curl forward on the ground, cheek scraping against the glass there.

In that moment all she wanted was to close her eyes and truly wake up.

Oliver reached them - even among the screaming destruction she heard his footsteps - and made short work of John’s defense.

_Wake up! Wake up!_

Wake up from _what_?

She was bleeding and she couldn’t breathe and the building was collapsing on her. This was no dream. Wake up from _what_?!

She opened her eyes and found Oliver’s face. He had his arms around her best friend’s neck-

 _No_!

The last thread of her resistance was plucked. She pushed herself up on her knees, barely feeling the shards of glass cutting into her palms.

“No! _Don’t_! Don’t hurt him!”

Among the screaming noise of the building imploding on them, her whisper was lost even to her own ears. But not to his. His blue eyes were calm. Certain.

“It’s going to be okay, Felicity.” Oliver said, and it made her blood run cold. His arms around John’s neck tensed. She knew what would happen.

Felicity rose and everything in the room rose from the floor with her. “ _No!_ ”

Oliver twisted his grip in one fluid motion.

Felicity screamed.

The ceiling cracked, raining debris all around them. Oliver threw himself on her as if to protect her just before a huge chunk of concrete fell on them both. 

There was searing pain.

Then there was nothing.

* * *

_[1] The story is supposed to be canon, and in this canon, the consequences of Flashpoint is that Digg and Lyla had a kid – John Jr. – from their first marriage, and then Sara was born as in canon._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thank you for reading the first chapter. I know that there is… well, to plainly put it, some really weird shit going on here, but I promise that everything will make sense. I know that you guys probably have a lot of questions (I would LOVE to hear them, to be honest, because that is part of the fun of this story) - especially about the ‘WTF’ moment in the end - but you’re supposed to! Especially because the story is going to answer them later on. 
> 
> I could have put more exposition in this chapter, but i chose to show show you guys what’s going on, instead of telling you about it, because I wanted the story to be the kind where you, as a reader, experience it at the same time as Felicity does, without either of you knowing more about it! (on the contrary, sometimes Felicity will know more, intuitively so, and you’ll have to guess what that is. i hope that’s as much fun as it sounded in my head when i was coming up with this idea.) 
> 
> The very next chapter will clarify a lot of what’s going on. I could have continued with it here i admit, since it’s not even that long, but I just really wanted to end the first chapter where it did, because the ‘setting’ of the next one changes drastically and there will be a bit of exposition there - to clarify things - and i felt like mixing those two settings would have ruined the ‘mood’, for lack of better word. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you, i hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you think! I will try to answer all your questions without giving too much away.


	3. an honorable human relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really feel like i should apologize for this chapter, because i really *do* *not* *wike it*. But it's been a month of looking it over trying to find WHAT i'm unhappy with and coming up with 'everything', so i thought... 'fuck it'. 
> 
> I know I should have contextualized my story within the DCTV universe far more carefully, but truth is… I cannot tell you how much i *do not* care about Flash or Supergirl or what really happened to the aliens. I’m just using whatever I know of canon to make it work for my story. However, under far more sensible advice from my beta, Lexi, she and I put together a ‘previously on’ small summary that you can read in the end-notes. Of course i tried to tell within the chapter what happened, but for those i failed there, there’s always the notes.

**1.5**   _an honorable human relationship_

> “ _An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to all persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us_.
> 
> \-      Adrienne Rich, **‘On Lies, Secrets & Silence’**

John on a strangled breath, gulping harshly for air that didn’t seem to be able to reach his lungs. One hand went to his throat instinctively, the memory of Oliver’s arms around it harder to shake than any nightmare.

_ Christ… _ __

He fell back against the gurney’s hard surface with a groan and passed a hand down his face. 

They’d failed. 

_ Goddamn it! _

He closed his eyes and just focused on breathing in and out instead, trying to get his heart rate down. He concentrated on the feel of the bed against his back, the beeping of the machines around him, the cold metal of the rail that he’d wrapped his hand around. He’d been doing this for years, but somehow it never got any easier. Hesitantly, John touched his temple, testing if the stinging cut was still there, but found only smooth skin instead. His head still throbbed with the memory of it, though. 

He gritted his teeth against a curse that threatened to crawl up his throat. For a simulated reality, everything in there had felt pretty fucking real. And dream or not, an iron bar to the face hurt like hell.

John heard Caitlin Snow’s steps getting closer, but he didn’t open his eyes. 

“Mister Diggle! How do you feel?”

He made a vague gesture with his hand. 

“Here, drink this.” She passed him a bottle of water, barely waiting for him to wrap his hand around it, before she reached into her pocket. “Can you follow the light?” 

She shone a penlight directly on John’s eyeballs. He flinched with a hiss. 

“Maybe in a couple of seconds, doc,” John said, moving her hand away gently.

Caitlyn retracted her hands immediately. “Oh, of course. So sorry.” 

John sat up. A wave of dizziness hit him so he closed his eyes again and tried to order the contents of his stomach to stay put. Slowly, he swung his feet off the side of the bed and looked for her. 

She was exactly where he’d left her: in a deeper sleep than anyone could be, on a bed between Oliver and himself. She was eerily still and pale, wired into different machines that were keeping track of her vitals. And keeping her hooked to the alien – fucking  _ alien! _ \- dream machine. 

John resisted the urge to groan.

Three years ago, the idea of Mirakuru had sounded ridiculous. He didn’t even know  _ what _ to think of this! John could only handle it one step at a time, focusing on what mattered. And though his mind couldn’t wrap around the fact that he had just been inside a  _ simulated reality _ Felicity Smoak had created and in which she was trapped in, John knew he didn’t have to understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ behind it. It was simpler than aliens, or dream machines, or whatever the fuck. It was like this: Felicity needed his help. That was the beginning and end of it all for him. When she wakes up, she would explain to him the rest of it and he would listen. Until then, his feelings on the issue were just a distraction, and as such, they were firmly ignored.  

John stood and took a step closer to her bed. 

At some point someone had undone her ponytail, and for a long moment, all John could think about was training in the foundry the summer after Slade’s attack, and how she used to flick her pony, trying to hit him in the face with it. She’d been sweating; it was making the fine hair at her temples curl about her face in a way John knew would annoy her. 

John looked up and found Oliver looking at her too, shoulders hunched and hands clasped between his legs, a  _ look _ in his eyes John knew by now.

“Oliver.  _ Oliver _ !”

Oliver looked up, blinking. “You all right, man?”

“We have to go back,” Oliver said slowly. 

John looked at Felicity’s heart monitor and her neural patterns on the screen just next to it. None of them knew how much time they had to get her out. When she’d helped them get Felicity out of the ship, Kara had warned them to be careful. That if she stayed under too long, Felicity might not be able to tell what was real and what was a dream when she woke. That they might not be able to get her to wake up at all. 

John looked around, at Oliver’s forlorn face, Palmer and Cisco talking, Caitlin checking Felicity’s chart, her IV. He gulped, wiped his sweating palms on his jeans. 

Yes, they needed to go back.  

Cisco walked up to them quickly, a fortified tablet in his hands. 

“Guys, what did you do? The whole simulation just collapsed and rebooted!” He looked from his tablet to the two of them, expectant.

John scoffed, remembering the terrifying feeling of a room going to pieces around him. “Yeah it did. Literally.” 

“Literally?” Cisco repeated, incredulous. “Which… which part was the literal part?”

At any other time, talking instead of  _ doing  _ something might have annoyed him, but this once, John could not blame Cisco for his confusion. He’d just been  _ in _ that room and he could hardly believe what he’d seen himself.  

“The collapsing part,” John answered.

Ramon’s eyes rounded with surprise, the hold he had on his tablet slackening minutely. “Wait, are you seriously telling me that the room like…  _ fell _ on you?”

“Kind of,” Oliver finally said, his voice so rough he had to clear his throat. “I thought you’d know?”

“No, I only read the code of how that _thing_ responds to what’s happening in the simulation.” Cisco pointed at the pieces of equipment they had stolen from an _actual alien ship_.  “I can’t actually _see_ what goes on in there.”

He turned the tablet so they could see the constant stream of code that kept falling down the screen, like blue rain on a black surface. 

“We  _ have _ to look at it encoded, actually.” Ray added, sidling up to them with his own tablet. “They didn’t have an image translator and there’s way too much data for the ones  _ we  _ have to process. It’s… I honestly have no words.” He huffed a small laugh. “Felicity would  _ love _ this.”

Oliver flinched so visibly John saw it out of the corner of his eye.

“So, you said the whole place ‘ _ kind of _ ’ fell down on you,” Palmer continued.

“I don’t know what happened, Ray,” Oliver snapped. “Does it matter?”

John narrowed his eyes at him in warning. Oliver looked so tense he seemed ready to crawl out of their skin and John could feel each second drag against him like sandpaper, but this was not the best time to take it out on innocent bystanders.

Ray looked between him and Oliver and gulped. “It could, maybe? I won’t know unless you tell me.”

“There were explosions.” John said, a touch more conciliatory than he was sure Oliver would be. “The bunker – that’s where we were – seemed to collapse? Or something. It happened fast; a lot of it just doesn’t make sense.”

Cisco and Ray exchanged a quick look. 

“You both died?” Palmer asked with a frown, his fingers frying on the tabled in a familiar way.

John nodded without looking at Oliver.

“Felicity would have had to ‘die’ too, for the simulation to reboot like that,” Cisco said, interrupting John’s scrutiny. He used his fingers as quotation marks around the word, but it didn’t keep Oliver and John from grimacing.

John cleared his throat. “Yeah she probably did.”  

The way that room had fallen apart had been like a sequence out of one of those goddamned cartoons his kids watched every Saturday morning. There really wasn’t any way she could have gotten out. 

She’d died there, under a crumbling building… and John remembered those first couple of months after the Undertaking. About how Felicity had had to move into his guest room because of the damage to her apartment. She hadn’t slept through the night once, the whole time she’d been there. She’d tried to hide it though, so John hadn’t pushed her. One night he had found her in his kitchen, staring at a cup of coffee she’d forgotten to drink. So he’d made them both cocoa, he remembers that so clearly now, it’s almost strange. He’d told her about his brother, some of what kept him up at night, and then waited for her to decide if she could trust him with her own fears. She had.

The next day, John had filled in the cracks in the ceiling of the foundry and cleaned up the last of the debris. They’d had Big Belly on the med table and she’d told him she was going to remodel the whole foundry with the money ‘ _ that idiot _ ’ had left them. And after that, they were going to find said idiot and make him come home. It hadn’t been a question and John had known that if he refused to help her, she’d just go ahead and do it herself. Not that he would refuse or argue. 

They’d both needed something to  _ do  _ those months, but it had been twice as hard for Felicity. She’d never seen combat before they’d dragged her into a war. Now her life was one battle after another. 

But even after so long, she was still afraid of the same things. And now she’d gone and died  _ exactly  _ the way she’d always feared.

A ‘ _ dream world’ _ , Cisco and Ray called it, but to John it sounded more like a nightmare. 

He took a deep, slow breath, reminded himself that it hadn’t been real. None of it! Felicity hadn’t died, she was just afraid of falling buildings, the same way John was afraid of them.

“The version of me that-- the one she--” Oliver’s words halted, his fists opening and closing as if they were trying to grasp for the missing words.

“Felicity’s projection of you?” Palmer helped.

“Yeah, him. He stabbed me. And then…” Oliver stopped again and looked at John. 

John frowned at him.  _ What?  _

“I saw him walking towards her,” Oliver said, the last bit of color draining from his face as he spoke. “And I-- I don’t know what he did.”

It wasn’t a question, but there was one in Oliver’s eyes and John felt his shoulders sag, in both understanding and a sharp sense of sadness for a loss that wasn’t even his. 

Some years ago, when Oliver and Felicity started to become obvious to anyone but each other, John hadn’t known how to feel about a potential relationship. Back then, working with Oliver and Felicity had been the first thing in a long time to give John a purpose, after years of doubting if he even was capable of having one. The team had mattered to him more than anything, and he didn’t like the idea of anything upsetting that stability. He hadn’t known how Felicity's nature and Oliver’s volatility would mix, and John hadn’t liked not knowing. 

When things had gone from obvious to undeniable, the reason for his worry changed too. They lived intense lives, and John of all people knew that danger had a way of throwing you out for a loop. That you could never know where you might land, after. If that place would look anything like the place you started in, or its middle. Sometimes love outside a battlefield looked different. Sometimes it wasn’t sustainable. 

John knew that. He’d lived it.

When the end had come for Oliver and Felicity, John hadn’t noticed much of it. He’d been in the middle of his own storm, trying to bring back a brother who had already slipped through his fingers long ago. Sometimes he was ashamed of that. Most days he tried not to think about it. Leaving Starling had meant leaving everything; at the time, he’d thought he’d needed it. That he had nothing but that to give. 

But outgoing is never the same as incoming and maybe that was why coming home had felt a lot like walking along the shore of a shipwreck. He kept finding stray bits and pieces of his friends’ lives here and there. New coping mechanisms, dynamics he was unfamiliar with, built around stretches of silence so unnatural, John didn’t know how to interpret them anymore. 

He understood the need for things to be this way though, whether he liked it or not. John knew better than most that neither war nor grief can leave love the way they found it. 

It wasn’t either of those that he was seeing in Oliver’s eyes now, though. Anyone else might not have noticed the alarm there, the guilt, but John wasn’t exactly new to this. 

“He wasn’t walking to Felicity. He was coming for me,” John explained slowly, “I was standing right next to her.” 

He waited for Oliver to look him in the eye and understand, even though he knew he wouldn’t, not really. Oliver hoarded guilt as naturally as most men breathed. 

“Yeah, but you see, there is no ‘ _ he’ _ !” Palmer reminded them both, enthusiastically enough to distract them. “Everything you see in there is part of Felicity’s unconscious mind. The ‘ _ Oliver’ _ in her world is who  _ Felicity _ thinks you are.” Ray considered that a moment, glanced at Oliver and then quickly looked back down to his tablet, his smile wistful. “It’s not surprising that in her mind, you’re the protector.”

Oliver clenched his jaw so tightly John saw a fine muscle ticking there just on the side of his cheek.

“Apparently she thinks you’re stronger than you actually are too,” Palmer continued without looking up. “Which, compliments aside, does complicate things a bit, since it kind of makes it hard to get around him.”

“No that’s not… that’s not it.” Cisco interrupted. “It’s not about her  _ perception _ ; this is…” but he kept being distracted by what he was seeing on his tablet.

John spoke before Oliver could snap. “Full sentences, Cisco. We don’t have all day.”

Cisco looked up, eyes wide. “Right. Yeah, sure okay. So listen. You're going into Felicity’s mind without having been there when the simulation was set up. So far, that has seemed to mean two things. One: her reality is both harder to penetrate  _ and _ more hostile. With you all together, the simulation had to combine the realities of five different people. This meant that what scared  _ you _ didn’t necessarily scare John or Ray!”

“What does that have to do with--” John started, but just then Sara and Thea burst through the doors, both still in their suits. Oliver’s relief at the sight of them was so palpable that it seemed like the temperature in the room actually went up a few degrees.

Thea had her bow in one hand and she lowered the hood with the other. She threw herself in Oliver’s arms for a hug, careful not to hit him with the bow. 

“Everything okay?” she asked, looking from him to John and then to Felicity.

“No, not really” Oliver admitted.” Everything okay with you guys?”

“It’s handled, don’t worry,” Sara answered. “Lyla is still in the field. She’s great at neat clean up, your wife.” 

Sara smiled at John, who could only manage a nod.

“How is she doing?” Sara asked, eyes on Felicity.

“Her vitals are good; brain activity is also totally normal, so there’s no reason for alarm yet.” Caitlin said, just as she finished changing Felicity’s IV. 

John tried not to smile, thinking what Felicity would have to say about needles in her arm.  

“Are  _ you _ guys okay?” Thea asked them then, looking from John to Oliver.

“We’re fine.” Oliver’s answer was curt, but Thea knew him well enough to understand why and not press him. “Cisco, you were saying?”

“Erm, simulation hostility. When you guys were under, there were more of you, so when either one of you guys freaked out, the simulation didn’t necessarily collapse to keep you in there, like it just did with Felicity.” 

“But this world belongs  _ only _ to Felicity. So that means that, in there, she is basically god and you are her guests.” Ray added. “So whatever happens in there, as well as your strength – or hers – is not about muscles. It’s about what Felicity  _ wants _ .”

John felt lost. “What?”

By the look on Oliver’s face he was just as confused and starting to lose patience.

“I mean, it makes sense.” Sara said and when everyone turned to her she just shrugged. “When we were under, we all faced our worst enemies and we defeated them at first try.”

Cisco nodded. “Yes exactly. Because that was  _ your _ dream and once you decided that you wanted to leave it, that was it. Of course, you had to ‘ _ fight your demons’ _ first, so to speak.” Cisco said around a small chuckle that was not received very well. “But you wanted to leave more than you wanted to stay, so you did. Get it?”

Thea stepped forward, arms crossed in front of her. “So you’re saying that we won the fights on our way out ‘cause we wanted to?”

“Basically, yeah. None of that was  _ actually _ happening. It was all in here.” Palmer tapped his temple. “You just have to get Felicity to realize she’s dreaming without scaring her.”

“Easier said than done.” John murmured. “Why did everything start going to shit the second she started to realize the truth?”

Oliver’s eyes snapped to his, wide and startled. “She believed you?”

“I think so. But it didn’t matter at that point because we were trapped.”

“It’s the simulation,” Cisco said, drawing their attention. “Kara said that it’s a program designed to learn about the subject wired into it. She said that if you try to interrupt it, it’s gonna defend itself by turning strong emotions against the dreamer. It’s why you guys had to face whoever scared you the most.” Cisco looked from Oliver to John, as if willing them to understand. “Basically whatever Felicity is dreaming will turn into a nightmare, if you upset her enough.”

“Either way, she’ll have to face what she’s afraid of to wake up, just like we did,” Palmer added, looking at them one at a time. “It makes sense, in a way.”

“In  _ what _ way?” Thea snapped.

John wished he didn’t know the answer, but the truth is that he’d spent too much time as a soldier not to know. Everyone keeps secrets, and mostly those secrets are either of fear or of shame. And with most people, if you know them, you own them . 

“You learn a lot about people once you know what they’re afraid of,” Sara said softly, looking down at the tips of her shoes.

John wondered in that moment, who he would be, if he wasn’t a man who knew these kinds of things.

Thea scowled, but didn’t deny it. Oliver, on the other hand, was silent and very still. 

John decided then and there that the next time the Legends, or the Flash, or a white girl flying around in a skirt, came looking for them for an emergency, he would lock his team inside the bunker and just play cards for two days.

John checked his watch before taking a gulp of water. Another ten minutes before they could go back under.

Sara took off her jacket with a sigh and sat down heavily on the nearest chair. “I just don’t get why she wasn’t in there with us in the first place. Why put her apart?”

To John, it wasn’t worth wondering because it wouldn’t help them any, but he couldn’t pretend not to be angry about that too. If she had been with them, they could have all woken up together. Instead they’d found her in one of the pods, completely unresponsive. It had been Kara who told them told them what critical parts of the alien ship’s technology to take and what to leave behind. If they had taken Felicity off the simulator manually, who knows if it would be possible for her to wake up at all.

John looked at Felicity’s seemingly peaceful face. She’d love the thought of them stealing tech from aliens.

“Oh, she  _ was _ with us,” Palmer piped up. When four different pairs of eyes fixed on him with the same intensity, he dialed down the chipper a little bit. “I downloaded the logs of the simulators we were all into, and it turns out that Felicity  _ was _ wired in with us, but she kept waking everyone up.”

John frowned. “How do you know? I don’t remember that happening.”

“I don’t remember it either,” Oliver said, turning to look at Thea and Sara for confirmation. They both nodded.

“Well, I don’t ‘ _ know’ _ know,” Palmer clarified. “But according to the data, the first simulation crashed twice before it was successful. And since Felicity is the only one of us who has her own simulation, I  _ assume _ she was the one that caused the crashes.”

“She knew it was fake. Just like I did,”  Thea  murmured, her voice dropping as her eyes did. She reached for Felicity’s hand with one of hers. “Maybe there was nothing in a world made for all six of us to make her want to stay there.”

That stung, but then John remembered how desolate the existence he’d imagined for himself had been, and he had to gulp down a whole new level of discomfort, having a close look at himself. 

“But that is good news,” Cisco reminded them. “It  _ can _ be good news. Theoretically. If she woke up once, she can do it again.”

Thea scoffed.

“She’s all alone in there this time, though,” Thea murmured without looking up. John tried get a better look at her, but her face was half obscured by the curtain of hair falling over it.

“You think that matters?” John asked her. 

The look Thea gave him was familiar. 

Thea Queen was one of the most driven and determined people John had met in his life, but she was such a sad kid. On the rare occasions when she let it show, she looked disarmingly like a twelve-year-old. 

“It would, if it were me,” she admitted with a shrug, sharing a quick look with Oliver before she looked down again. 

“Felicity wouldn't want to live in some kind of fantasy-world. She’s not like that,” Sara stated, sounding absolutely sure.

Thea’s smile was pained. “You would have said that about me too, before, wouldn’t you? And you would have been right.” 

She sounded completely calm, but John knew she was hiding something beneath that smoothness, because she hadn’t looked up yet. And because Oliver was looking at her like she was breaking his heart.

“I didn't think I’d want to live in a fake world either, until I was in it,” she continued. Softly, as if it was neither a secret nor a regret. Just a fact. 

John understood, and his fear started to trickle anew, like a reopened wound. Because maybe Thea was right. Maybe this was so difficult because Felicity had already made her choice. Getting everything you ever wanted, even if it wasn't real, after being tired of losing really was something that fucked with your head. He could understand that.

Oliver wiped both hands down his face. “All right! Wire us back in.”

Cisco and Ray shared an alarmed look.

“But… it’s not been thirty minutes yet.”

“ _ Cisco _ !”

“Kara said-”

“ _ I don’t care _ what Kara said!” Oliver snapped harshly. But then he took a controlled breath and spoke more calmly. “Do it, please.”

John watched Oliver carefully. He watched the rigid line of Oliver’s shoulders, the tension bunched along his muscles that made him look like he was about to spring into violent action, and honestly, he couldn’t say he didn’t understand where Oliver was coming from.

But still. “We can’t fuck around with this stuff, Oliver. We barely understand it as it is.”

“John-“

“It’s not about what could happen to us. What if we mess something up for Felicity?”

The low “ _ fuck _ ” Oliver hissed between his teeth went mostly unheard. John knew he would wait. Felicity was, usually, the surest immovable object to put in front of Oliver when he got like this. 

So they waited. John would have been impressed by Oliver counting all the minutes, but the truth was, he was counting too.

* * *

[1] Sense8, season 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After escaping the Dominators’ simulation, Oliver and John realized Felicity was the only one of their group who didn’t “wake up.” Oliver tried to unhook her from the machine, but Kara - who was there helping them - warned him that doing that was dangerous, because she might not wake up if she doesn't ‘resolve’ the simulation she is in naturally. The team got the equipment and Oliver carried Felicity out to the waiting Waverider.
> 
> Upon returning to earth, he carried Felicity to Star Labs, to make use of their better Medical facilities. Cisco and Ray were able to use the alien tech to “plug” into a digital description of Felicity’s brain functions, trying to understand why she wouldn’t wake up. 
> 
> Before leaving with Sara, Lyla and the rest of teams to deal with the fallout of the alien attack, Thea suggested to Oliver that Felicity might need someone to confront her inside the dream; to tell her the simulation wasn’t real and she needed to come home.


	4. 1c.ooo phantoms deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's been so long that I knew a 'previously on' note wouldn't hurt here.  
> felicity is 'dreaming' and as we explore her 'world without regret', we explore the nature of those regrets and fears. oliver and john go under to get her to wake up because she could die if she doesn't. the first time the try to do this, they fail. the dream collapses and is reset. oliver and john wake up in shock at the violence of it all, but this doesn't stop them from trying again.  
> what they don't know is that it's only just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part ii: yellow
> 
> “Yellow is the color nearest to light. It appears on the slightest mitigation of light, whether by semi-transparent mediums or faint reflection from white surfaces. In prismatic experiments, it extends itself alone and widely in the light space, and while the two poles remain separated from each other, before it mixes with blue to produce green, it is to be seen in its utmost purity and beauty.
> 
> In its highest purity, yellow always carries with it the nature of brightness and has a serene gay exciting character. The eye is gladdened, the heart expanded and cheers, a glow seems to breathe towards us.
> 
> While in its purest and bright state this color is agreeable and gladdening and in its utmost power is serene and noble, it is, on the other hand, extremely liable to contamination, and produces a very disagreeable effect of it sullied, or if in some degree tends to the minus side.
> 
> If steadily gazed at, yellow can also have a disturbing influence, and reveals in the color an insistent, aggressive character.
> 
> The first movement of yellow, that of approach to the spectator (which can be increased by an intensification of the yellow), and also the second movement, that of over-spreading the boundaries, have a material parallel in the human energy which assails every obstacle blindly, and bursts forth aimlessly in every direction.”
> 
> •Goethe’s “Theory of Color”; Wassily Kandinsky’s “Concerning The Spiritual In Art”

**_1c.ooo phantoms deep °_ **

_i think of lovers as trees, growing to and_  
_from one another searching for the same light,_  
_my mothers laughter in a dark room,_  
_a photograph graying under my touch,_  
_this is all i know how to do, carry loss around until_  
_i begin to resemble every bad memory,_  
_every terrible fear,_  
_every nightmare anyone has ever had._

_\- Warsan Shire, “the unbearable weight of staying (the end of the relationship)”_

Felicity woke up thrashing, the tail-end of a scream getting caught in her throat before she could realize she safe in her own bed. 

“Felicity? Felicity, wake up.” 

Everything rushed in at once, a sensory overload that only made her gasp for air harder: Oliver’s voice, his hand on her arm, her bed, her body, the pain, the moonlight beyond the paneled glass… 

“It’s okay. You’re safe. You were dreaming, baby.” 

She fell back on the bed, covering her face with her hands. She’d been dreaming. Right.

Oliver was rubbing her arm, so she knew he felt it when she shivered. 

“Hey.”

“I’m okay.” She knew he’d see through her – she was still shaking. “I just … need a moment.”

“Felicity-”

She slipped out of bed and, on shaky legs, headed for the bathroom, closed the door behind her. Reaching the sink, Felicity gripped its rim with both hands, taking deep slow breaths, trying to center herself again. She hadn’t had nightmares this vivid in a long time. Hadn’t had an outright panic attack after one, since… 

Yeah, since the shooting. 

Felicity opened the faucet, soaked her hands and then flinched for a small breath, anticipating the cold water’s sting on her hands. 

_ Damn it…  _ __ __

She splashed her face, trying to wash the dream away like so much dust stuck on her skin. That was exactly the way it lingered: something she could  _ feel _ on her. In the raised hair in her arm, in scent of smoke she could still smell. 

The water rivulets made their way down her throat, her back, soaking her T-shirt, causing more shivers. It was only when she reached for the towel that Felicity realized she had forgotten to turn on the light. She caught her reflection in the mirror and paused. In the pale light of dawn streaming through the tall windows, half her face seemed bone white, the other half dipped in shadow. The more Felicity stared, the more her face seemed to change in the dark: eye sockets deepening, darkening, cheekbones sharpening…  

Light flooded the room unexpectedly and Felicity closed her eyes at the sudden brightness. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The words were out of her mouth before she even thought about it too much. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. 

Oliver crossed his arms in front of him and she found herself staring at his forearms before she closed her eyes with a deep sigh. 

“You were screaming, hon.”  Oliver said softly. Felicity dried her face without looking at him. She folded the towel carefully, placed it in on the counter again. The diamond on her ring broke the light in a thousand directions, winking at her.

“It was just a dream.”  

He reached for her, moving slowly. With a sigh, Felicity stepped into his arms and let him fold her into a hug. 

“You’re shivering,” Oliver whispered at her temple as he rubbed his hands up and down her back and her arms. 

She was. The warmth of his body had felt startling; she hadn’t realized till then how cold she’d been. Felicity knew from the bitterness that lingered in her mouth that that had been because of the adrenaline. The thought made her face feel warm. She felt so stupid… 

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“No.” 

It was even more childish murmuring like that into his shirt, but it didn’t stop her, despite how embarrassed and annoyed she felt for being so shaken.

Her stomach gave a queasy roll. 

“Felicity…” 

She pushed at his chest and Oliver loosened his arms so that she could lean back and look at him. “Can we just forget about it? Just this once?”

Oliver didn’t say anything, but Felicity knew just by the look on his face that he wouldn’t just let this go. He’d worry over it all day and come evening, he’d probably ask her again.

“It was just a nightmare.” She tried to make her words both earnest and dismissive. “I’ve been dreaming about buildings falling on me for years.”

Oliver gulped, the look of worry and guilt on his face was so familiar she flinched. 

“Don’t,” Felicity warned, slipping out of his arms. “I am in the mood for a big breakfast, and since I  _ really _ wouldn’t like to burn the kitchen down...” 

She raised her eyebrows at him and waited. The corner of Oliver’s lips ticked upwards in the smallest smile and she knew she’d won this one, at least temporarily. 

“It would be best to avoid a visit from the firefighters first thing in the morning, yeah,” he said as Felicity reached the fridge, a smile in his voice.

“That happened  _ one time _ ! When are you going to let it go?”

“In a couple of years or so,” Oliver said with a shrug. Felicity slapped his arm and he just laughed some more.

“Eggs or pancakes?”

Felicity thought about it. “Both?” 

Finally, a real smile made its way on Oliver’s face even as he rolled her eyes at her. “Both, for the birthday girl.”

Oliver took the eggs out of the fridge along with the pancake batter, with the blueberries to mix in it. Felicity squeezed fresh orange juice for the both of them, then settled for ogling at Oliver’s arms move as he made them breakfast, and that’s how sunrise found them.

“You can’t eat three cakes in one day!” Oliver protested when she told him about her suspicions that Jimmy had been organizing a small party for her at the executive levels, and Amanda was probably doing the same thing in IT – and that she planned to attend both.

Felicity snorted. “Watch me.”

“It’s not healthy, Felicity.”

“It’s my birthday.” She almost laughed at the way Oliver pursed his lips, but didn’t contradict her. It was nice that it being her birthday seemed to be the final claim that negated any other argument. 

Felicity poked at the first pancake with a pout. “Aw. look at this pancake.”

Oliver looked over. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s sad.”

Oliver raised his eyebrows at her in disbelief. 

“You’ve made a sad pancake,” she continued.

“I bet some chocolate chips would cheer it up.”

Felicity moved towards the freezer slowly. “Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of ice cream.”

She snickered when he shook his head murmuring about cholesterol and heart attacks. 

Felicity gasped, putting her hand over her plate protectively. “Hey, no talking like that around my pancakes. They’re sensitive.”

Oliver flipped one of said pancakes while barely looking at it, smirking at her. If she didn’t know better she’d think he was showing off. “Or what?”

Felicity jumped down from the counter slapped his ass as she walked around him. 

Oliver laughed so loud, she couldn’t help following suit. 

o

“I think what happened last night must have triggered you in some way,” he said gently. 

Felicity gave him a look. “And we were having such a nice time.”

This time Oliver didn’t smile, so Felicity glanced back at the two inches of juice left of in her glass. 

“Yeah, well… I guess you’re not wrong.”  Nobody could really like being locked in a room small enough to be a roomy coffin. And with the subway above her, the rattling from the high-speed trains above had felt… it had felt… 

A sudden image of glass cases exploding flashed at the forefront of her mind. Felicity flinched. Her glass tipped dangerously to the side but before it could fall off the table, Oliver caught it and only a little bit of the juice spilled on her hand. The cold, wet feel of the orange juice thoroughly interrupted her reverie, and she blinked up at Oliver, who was looking at her with that little wrinkle between his eyebrows again. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her slowly. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d hurt his feelings. Something coiled a little tighter inside her, like a bird hiding its head under its wing. 

“I didn’t think there was anything to tell,” Felicity admitted as she dried her hand and the counter with a tablecloth. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Hazard of the job, Oliver. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Kinda means  _ something _ , Felicity,” Oliver said softly. 

The words jarred her out of her thoughts so harshly that she almost dropped the glass again. She looked at him sharply, fearing, with the irrationality of someone who might still be dreaming, that he wouldn’t be really there at all.

“What did you say?” she breathed out.

“I- I said it has to mean something. What’s wrong?” 

Felicity didn’t answer, couldn’t. She just looked at him, almost afraid to blink. It was as if his words were a fine tether. They’d hooked into something at the back of her mind and kept pulling at it, trying to bring it up to the surface. 

Oliver, looking more worried by the minute, took her gently by the shoulders. Felicity only halfheartedly turned to face him, her mind still working over why she had this feeling of irrevocable déjà vu. It was as if she had been going down a flight of stairs and had missed a step. The memory felt so close. It was just there, like something standing behind a thin veil. She could  _ almost _ see the outline of it;  _ almost _ brush the veil aside with the tips of her fingers. Calling to her in some strange way, as if she’d seen it all before…

The cold slithered its way up her spine, coiling tight around her heart, sinking its teeth in so sharply her eyes stung. 

_ What’s the last thing you remember? _

Oliver framed the sides of her face, bringing her back to him. He was taking in her face one feature at a time, the way he did when he was worried. As if they would give away what she was keeping from him. 

“Talk to me, Felicity.” 

She swallowed and shook her head, trying hard to find the words. She didn’t know how to even  _ begin _ explaining this. Where should she start? None of it made sense, and she was tired. 

Oliver wiped his thumb down her cheek and she realized one tear had managed to slip free. So she took a step closer, wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him, hard and unexpectedly. She told herself that the erratic fluttering inside her chest was passion, not fear, and then kissed him again, pulling him closer.  

“Felicity…” He grabbed her wrists, gently pulled her away, just a breath. Enough to get the words out. “Tell me what’s wrong.” 

Felicity shook her head. 

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong.” She murmured it against his lips as she pushed him towards the soft couches before the fireplace. He gave in to the pressure of her hands, moved, but his eyes were fixed on hers, worry written all over him. 

Felicity frame his face with her hands. “Oliver. Kiss me.”

Finally, she felt him give in. is arms came around her holding her as tightly as she was holding him, lips as soft as ever as they parted for her. 

_ Yes. Yes! Make love to me. Fuck me. Anything. Make me feel it. _

It was a frantic litany in her head, a wall all other thoughts were meant to slam against. She might have said it out loud too, Felicity wasn’t sure. His hands slipped down to her ass and he pulled her up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist. At that point it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. 

Felicity held onto him. Hands in his hair, touching his face, his shoulders, his arms; exactly as if her life depended on it. And as she did, she could feel her worry growing ever more distant. Her relief was so strong it could only match the affection she felt for him in that moment. Something as tender as a bruise she kept pressing. Every time he kissed her, it was like he was telling her he was in love, and every time, it felt like the whole world stopped to listen . 

Her whole world…

_ Yes, say it again.  _

He sat down. Felicity felt the soft couch give beneath her legs, her hands when he leaned back. She heard his T-shirt tear a little as she pulled it off him quickly. 

“Let’s not leave the loft today,” she whispered, frantic and needy and unashamed, casting her top away carelessly and pressing herself against him with a satisfied hum. He was always so  _ warm _ . They kissed and kissed, pressed close, hands everywhere, until she felt she could melt on him, like butter on a hot scone.

“Let’s stay here, just the two of us.”

Oliver flipped her unexpectedly, so that her back was against the couch, kissed her, gentle, and slow, the way he kissed her when he knew she was afraid. 

“We’ll stay here forever, if that’s what you want.”

Felicity nodded, pulled him closer. “Yes, that’s what I want.”

And there was nothing anymore beyond the two of them. Nothing beyond him and his hands, lips. Teeth at the skin and the frantic anticipation .  

She didn’t believe the stories, they weren’t even  _ her _ stories, but if this is what it had been, Eve’s knees grinding in the dirt of paradise, Felicity couldn’t imagine why she’d wanted anything else. 

_ Let’s stay here forever.  _

His hand gripping hers, fingers entwining. 

_ Yes.  _

_ Yes.  _

_ Say it again. _

o

_ Listen, listen _ __  
_ Who speaks to the waters and who weeps- do you hear _ __  
_ Who searches for the other, who cries out- do you hear? _ __  
_ I am the one who cries out and I am the one who weeps, do you hear me _ _  
_ __ I love you, I love you, I love you.

_—_

| 

_Odysseas Elytis, from ‘The Monogram’_  
  
---|---  
  
It happened exactly like the first time, but it didn’t make it any less strange. Oliver had closed his eyes on a bed in STAR Labs, and opened them in the middle of a brightly lit Big Belly Burger shop, halfway through his meal. And despite knowing who he was and where, it still took him a long moment to remember ‘why’. Oliver remembered coming here from… somewhere else, probably his office, for a quick lunch. John had to have joined him along the way. 

The effect of it all was disturbing. Two minutes in and already he felt part of this place. 

John was sitting in front of him, looking as disconcerted as Oliver felt. Oliver could understand the feeling. 

When he’d explained this to Cisco before he went under, the other man had just shrugged and thought it made sense. 

‘ _ You never remember the beginning of a dream, do you? You always wind up right in the middle of it _ _. _ ’

Oliver looked around at the people in the booths, the smiling waitresses, the food. Everything felt so real. Every detail, so vivid, from the faded green color of the tables to the smell of salt and grease of the food in front of him.

“Amazing, it even tastes the same,” John said thoughtfully, looking at the burger in his hands. He carefully set it down on the plate in front of him, kept chewing thoughtfully, wiped his hands on a paper-towel before speaking again. “I don’t think we should go to the bunker.” 

Oliver frowned. “The weapons we need are there.”

“Yeah and last time, Felicity was there too. I don’t want a repeat.”

“It’s the middle of the day – they’ll both be working.”  

“And I’m not convinced we should use weapons either, by the way.”

“Digg-”

“You heard what Cisco said. He’s part of her unconscious mind-”

“He’s not real!” Oliver forced himself to keep his voice down. “Felicity-- _ Felicity _ is real.”

“I know that, but if you think she hasn’t built her world with firewalls, then I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

Oliver sat back, stunned. 

“What if killing  _ her _ Oliver trips some kind of alarm and the whole thing collapses again?” John continued. “We don’t even know if he  _ can _ be killed. It’s not like he’s really  _ alive _ !”

Oliver’s frown deepened. “We know what will happen if we don’t.” 

They didn’t have time to argue about this, but the thought had merit. 

“What we need is Felicity in a room, alone,” John said thoughtfully. “And time to convince her. Which means her projection of you has to be far enough away from her, that it will take him more than fifteen minutes to get back.” 

“Getting him stuck in traffic at the other side of town during rush hour would be ideal,” Oliver pointed out. 

John sighed, passing a hand over his face. “The longer we talk about it the crazier this sounds, man. Does this place even have rush hour? How do we know he won’t just  _ materialize _ there if she gets scared?”

“We don’t. We’ll just have to take our chances.”

John scoffed. “We’ve done stupider things with worse plans.” 

o

John walked in at the tail end of the conversation. “Yeah, man. Thank you. I’ll see you tonight.”

He hung up and then stared at the phone in his hand like it might spout legs at any moment, before putting it down. 

“That was you.” 

“And?”

For a moment, John looked more freaked out by Oliver’s calm response than the fact that he had spoken to his best friend’s doppelganger on the phone. 

“He is going to pick up Sara. It should take him at least one hour to get to the daycare, drop her off home and get back.”

“Good. I checked – everyone’s about their days. Apparently I’m taking the day off with Felicity. And…” Oliver stopped, thought about it some more. 

“What?”

“Laurel is here too.”

John stilled, frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She’s alive. Or at least that’s what it looks like.” Just like he’d dreamt her: alive and happy and getting everything she ever wanted, because that had always been all he’d wanted for her. 

Love seemed to have a way of leading different people to the same place, with an almost fatal inevitability. Just like it had led him here. 

“But everyone keeps telling me they  _ just _ saw her, but in different places.”

John sighed deeply and passed a hand over his face. “Okay. Alright. Let’s burn that bridge when we come to it.”

Oliver nodded. He had no idea what that would look like, but he’d rather not think about it at all in that moment. Out of habit he reached in his back pocket as he stood, and paid for the meal, wondering what would happen if they didn’t. 

“They both  _ had _ to take a day off,” John muttered as they stepped outside. 

“We usually do.”

“Yeah, but I just can’t shake this feeling man. It’s as if she  _ knows _ or something.”

Oliver paused and they exchanged a look. 

“You think so?”

John shrugged. “I talked to you on the phone while you were staring five feet from me, none of this is real and I just had a Big Belly. I don’t know  _ what _ to think.”

Oliver looked around, at the décor, the details. At how every single brick of the interior was outlined with perfect clarity, but the color scheme on the napkins was inverted.

Felicity always said it would have looked better that way. 

Oliver didn’t believe in coincidences in general, and he was sure they weren’t possible in here. Whatever this place was, nothing here happened by accident. 

o

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” John said slowly as he looked out the taxi’s window. 

“Yeah.”

Oliver wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he knew had not been… this. He wasn’t even sure he could have  _ imagined  _ this. 

At first glance nothing  _ seemed _ out of the ordinary. In many ways, her world was a reflection of reality. Oliver recognized most of the neighborhoods and the streets were the same. There were people around going about what seemed to be their lives, shops, cafes. The smell of the city, harsh dust and smoke, was exactly the same. He even recognized a restaurant where he and Felicity used to have lunch sometimes. 

Once he started focusing on the details though, prying them apart from the whole, he started noticing the collection of small dissonances. Started being aware that some of what he was seeing wasn’t normal. That it shouldn’t be; or rather,  _ couldn’t _ … 

Everything was  _ sleeker _ here, all polished glass and gleaming metals. Greener too: there were trees lining every street, bright-colored flowers growing along sidewalks or sprouting through concrete every here and there. Vines climbing the sides of the glass structures. Some buildings had elevators gliding up and down along their sides with nothing but sheer will making them move. Others seemed to grow wider as they grew higher, and or floated above the air, their first floors missing completely, like giant glass boxes that formed intricate structures. They looked like they could be unpacked like Legos. 

Remembering that that wasn’t how it worked was not always immediate. It took some thought. Awareness.

Oliver looked up, following one of the more stubborn vines that seemed to climb the skyscraper all the way to the top, and gasped at the sight of a curving structure in the sky. A half-circle bridging one side of the city with the other, like a metal rainbow. 

Oliver stared at it, amazed. 

“Jesus.” John laughed. "I always say she watches too much sci-fi.”

Oliver managed a small smile. 

Maybe he was reading too much into it, but he swore he could almost read Felicity’s sense of humor in the way this world was built: impossible, yet still there in spite of it. The longer Oliver looked the more sense it made: this was Starling, but it also  _ wasn’t _ . This was Felicity! 

She’d always seemed to him uniquely able to exteriorize her richness . This was just… less metaphorical.  

“The loft should be about two blocks down, right?”

“Should be,” Oliver murmured, watching the bare trees covered in snow. On their way there, the trees started losing their green sheen, yellowing, until the trees lost all their leaves, and instead of clusters of reddish dead leaves, the sidewalk became covered in snow.

John noticed what Oliver was looking at and snorted. “All four seasons in a twenty block radius. Fantastic.” 

Oliver could understand it, though. “She never could make up her mind about which one she liked best.”

When he caught sight of their building, Oliver couldn’t help his surprise. To his left, John cursed under his breath. 

At first it looked the same, but then on the top floor, Oliver could see the green lining of trees that inexplicably grew there, the vines extending far beyond the rim of the building and crawling down over the glass. It looked as if there was a whole garden lining the balconies of the loft. A stream of water fell from the side, like a waterfall, but it fizzled out before it hit the street, into thin mist that broke the sunlight into rainbows. 

“So, how are we going to convince her this time?” John asked as they walked in. 

“I have a plan.” He did. He was less sure of how that plan was going to  _ go _ , but at least he had a plan.

“You do?”

Olive turn to him. “You said she remembered last time.”

John hesitated. “I  _ thought _ she did, but I didn’t exactly have time to check.”

Oliver pursed his lips and led Digg through the gleaming glass-and-metal design of the lobby and into the elevator.  

“This is probably gonna backfire.” 

“Yeah, probably.” But Oliver still pressed the button for the last floor. “If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.”

John groaned. “Outstanding.”

o

_ “I have so much love for you, I could fill rooms with it. Buildings. You’re surrounded by it wherever you go, you walk through it, breathe it… it’s in your lungs, and under your tongue, and between your fingers and toes…” _

  * __Lisa Kleypas;__



The elevator doors opened not into the familiar corridor that would lead them to the loft’s front door, the way Oliver had expected, but directly into the loft. Or what was  _ supposed _ to be the loft… Its interior was different. Incongruously, it looked like a craftsman house. The temperature shift was the second thing he noticed. It was so warm in there Oliver could barely stand his jacket.

“Are we sure we’re in the right place?”

“Yes.” It took him a moment to realize it, but once he did, Oliver was sure. 

He walked in and called for her, but nobody answered. 

“Maybe she’s at her old apartment.” John suggested in a whisper.

Oliver shook his head. “No, she’s here.” He knew it. He could  _ feel _ it. 

“This looks nothing like your place, man.”

No, it didn’t. But… it looked a lot the house they used to talk about, sometimes. 

The memory made his chest ache. In their conversations, it had never been anywhere specific: not the loft or the house in Ivy Town – the one they never talked about after they left it. It had always been just a house. Somewhere quiet. 

_ Christ…  _

He could feel John’s eyes on him. 

“She loves this kind of building, but we both always wanted to live in a house.” Oliver cleared his throat. “I guess here she didn’t have to choose .” 

They walked down the long corridor, looking at the black and white photographs hanging on the walls. 

“That’s… These are mine.” 

“Yeah.”

John smiled. “I guess some things are the same.”

_ Everything’s the same.  _

Oliver didn’t say that out loud, but that didn’t make it feel any less true. On the surface, everything was outrageous, bright, and impossible, but beneath, this place felt familiar and Oliver could help thinking that that was because Felicity was everywhere. This dream wasn’t just built around her; she was part of it. 

They stepped into a wide living-room. Bright yellow blankets were thrown over the backs of the couches; colorful rugs made the whole place feel warm, like a hug. 

The garden beyond the wide floor-to-ceiling glass panels caught his eye, bursting with life and color, cheekily defying possibility like everything else in this place. It reminded him of the front lawn they’d had in Ivy Town and the garden he’d wanted to build there. From this height, Oliver could almost see the whole city, and beyond it in the distance, mountain ridges. There were no mountains in Starling, and these were tinted red, as if there was a desert far ahead of them.

“I didn’t know yellow was Felicity’s favorite color.” John said, drawing Oliver’s attention.

“It’s not.” 

Felicity didn’t have a favorite color, exactly. It varied with her mood, with what she wanted her mood to be, even. She thought looking happy could help you be happy, so she picked her happy shoes and started her day from there. Sometimes, she was even right. She had guessed Oliver’s favorite color at first try though, as they sped down the highway, hills on one side and the gleaming ocean on the other.

But Oliver didn’t know how to explain any of that to John. How to tell him that in truth, Oliver hadn’t even had a favorite color, until she’d yelled out ‘ _ yellow _ !’ and laughed, curls tighter than usual because of the salted water she’d spent the better part of the day swimming in. She’d been so excited, smiling so wide. So Oliver had told her she was right. And he had never seen yellow the same since, it was in everything. He could probably live in it now .

Yellow wasn’t Felicity’s favorite color, no. 

The yellow was for him.

And so was the garden, the soft blankets, the thick carpet beneath his feet and the baking temperature. Oliver knew it without a shadow of doubt, because she’d done this before too. Filled the loft with little bits of softness for him overindulge in, after she’d realized how much he liked to. And as he understood - what this was, where he was standing, what it meant – Oliver was overwhelmed by it all, a longing too deep for words, a missing of endless strength, to the very end, without anything left in his heart . Exactly the same as how he loved her. 

Something thumped upstairs. Oliver’s hand twitched to reach behind him, before he remembered he didn’t have his bow with him. He looked at the ceiling, wishing he could see through it. Though if Felicity was as accurate as he thought she was, then there would be more than one weapon stashed around the house. 

Oliver took a chance. “Felicity? You up there?”

“Oliver?” her voice came muffled with a floor between them, but he heard her. 

“Yeah.” 

John signaled him and then quietly slipped out into the garden to be on lookout. Oliver looked at the stairs that would take him one floor up, to her, and took a deep breath.

“How – ouch,  _ damn it _ ! – how are you back so soon?”

“John called. The guy who wanted to meet him cancelled last minute.” The lie rolled off his tongue easily. He’d thought it through.

“What? What kind of unreliable-”

There was another soft thump from above, followed by a muffled ‘shit’. It made Oliver smile despite himself. 

“You all right up there?”

“Do not laugh at me, Queen.”

Oliver bit his lip, the way he could have to contain his smile if she’d been in the room with him. “I wouldn’t dare.”

He heard her snort all the way down the corridor and his eyes stung even as he smiled, the hole in his chest aching more sharply the closer he got to seeing her.

He’d told John he had a plan, but it wasn’t strictly true. Oliver didn’t know what he’d say to Felicity, exactly, but he was starting to get a better idea on  _ how _ he’d say it, because walking into her world was making him understand what was keeping her here. 

It wasn’t that hard to see now that he was here. It wasn’t about the details or the architecture, like Cisco and Palmer thought. There was nothing to decode here. Like everything else about Felicity, it was about the feel of it, and Oliver  _ did _ feel it. How walking these halls felt like he’d walked out of the amber he’d been frozen in, and right into his life. A life he  _ belonged _ in and that belonged to him, that had been waiting for him. Like a perfect photograph, and he was walking into frame again. 

And Oliver the secret that would help him get her back: he had to believe it, if only for a moment, to get through to her. That he was hers, exactly as she needed him to be.   

It was a strange lie to accept: easy to believe, hard to imagine in the details. How did  _ she _ imagine him? What mistakes of his did she wish away? 

( _ but then he knew the answers there. He knew what she’d wish away. Her fantasy and their reality were too close  _ not _ to know – he was just being a coward, and there was no room for that here _ .)

He walked into their room and it was exactly the same. Not a minute detail was different here, apart from a mess of clothes on the bed and Felicity in the corner, trying on a bright red dress. She was looking at herself in the mirror from all angles with a serious appraising gaze, before she turned to him. 

“What do you think?”

In that moment, he couldn’t really think anything, so he said the easiest thing. “I think you look stunning in red.” 

Felicity rolled her eyes. “You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

She made a face before she slipped out of her heels. 

“ _ And _ that you should rethink the whole ‘moving the closet on our bed’ thing,” Oliver added stepping towards her and unzipping the dress. His hand brushed her warm shoulder, her back. He’d missed her so fiercely that everything about her from this close got to him like a punch in the gut. 

“I’m having an emergency.”

He couldn’t help a smile at her tone. “I can tell.”

“Okay, I’ve tried on five different dresses and I really think we finally have a winner, folks!” 

She threw the red one at him with a wink. 

And Oliver - he didn’t do it on purpose, not really. One moment he was thinking about all the things he had to say to her, all the details he could get wrong - and the next, Felicity was rummaging through her underwear drawer in a pair of red polka dot panties, with a small orange bow on them and Oliver felt completely disarmed. 

“Oliver?”

He blinked fast and shifted his weight. “Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“ _ Oliver _ .”

“ _ Felicity _ .”

She looked at him without blinking, the way she did when she knew he was up to something. 

“You’re staring,” She deadpanned as if it was a problem that needed solving.

“I’m gazing.”

“It’s creepy.”

“It’s romantic.”

She snorted. “If you’re in an 80s teen movie, yeah, but sadly, John Hughes did not direct our lives .”

“Shame.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Her smile was brilliant, and only made better by the way she huffed as she put a T-shirt on, when it knocked her glasses a little askew. “I would have loved having my own musical number for no apparent reason .”

“I  _ would _ suggest going to that karaoke place on Fifth, but seeing that I know for a fact you’re gonna try to make me sing again…”

She bit her lip but her eyes were sparkling with silent laughter. “O ye, of little faith.”

It was Oliver’s time to snort. Felicity poked him on the side. “Hey, I was just looking out for you.  You know what they say about facing your fears.”

“I do  _ not _ have stage phobia.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Oliver’s smile widened. He could feel the warmth expanding from his chest all the way to his fingertips. “You realize I see what you’re doing, right?”

She blinked at him, all wide eyed and innocent, trying to move past him out of the closet. “What am I doing?”

“Reverse psychology only works on the weak-willed.”

She actually laughed in his face. “Oh trust me, nobody can ever doubt your… strong-mindedness.”

“Now, why does that sound like snark to me?”

Felicity sniggered. “’Cause you know me so well.”

Oliver took a step closer to her, traced the neckline of her T-shirt, her collarbone. “Felicity?” 

She raised an interested eyebrow at him, waiting and Oliver felt his heart hurt with how much he’d missed her.  _ Just like this _ , barefoot in their room, in her most comfortable clothes and messy hair. 

He lowered his head to brush the tip of his nose to hers and smiled. “Wanna play a game?”

Her grin went straight through him. She wrapped her arms loosely around his torso, a lazy smile on her face. 

He’d missed her like this too. 

“What game am I playing?” she asked, burrowing a little closer with that deliberate slowness that made him grab a fistful of her T-shirt, right at the small of her back, to keep from holding on to her too tight and giving himself away.

It had been so fucking long since… It felt like forever.  _ (It felt like a moment ago.) _

A small frown formed between her brows. “Oliver?”

He stepped back then, and not wanting to give her more time to figure him out the way she always did, he decided he’d have to move fast. Quickly, before she could track him, he bend down, wrapped an arm firmly around her thighs and lifted her up over his shoulder. Felicity squealed, surprised, and then started laughing breathlessly as he carried her out of the closet. She slapped his ass as he walked, so Oliver grinned and slapped hers, making her jump and laugh harder. He dropped her on the bed unceremoniously and watched her bounce on the mattress and just laugh and laugh. 

He followed her as if she was pulling at him, the need to be close to her so tangible, so overwhelming he was almost out of his mind with it. He kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, her neck, every inch in between, desperation making almost frantic. 

She framed his face and tilted her chin just so, inviting him, so Oliver kissed her. 

How did he ever think that he wouldn’t? Her Oliver wouldn’t have hesitated to kiss her. 

God knows  _ he _ never had, before. 

He had thought he’d  _ know _ it wasn’t the same; that it wasn’t real. But then he was he was close enough to breathe her in and the thought that it wasn’t didn’t even brush him. There was no thinking really, beyond the fact that she wanted him and that he had been beyond missing her  _ five months ago _ . 

In that moment, as he held her tighter than he’d meant to, and kissed her for longer than he should have, Oliver realized it would be so easy to let go. To walk inside the heart of her and never walk back out . 

_ So easy…  _

Thea had been right; it took little to give in. Just one single moment of wishing it, and her world would become his. 

And who knew what would become of her up there. Of him, his son and his friends, his sister. It would be easy to give in, but Oliver but it was harder to forget everything else. Everyone who needed him was like a string that tied him to the truth he could not let go of. Without them he would float up like a balloon, but he  _ did _ have them. He remembered: he wasn’t here to stay. He was here to get her out. 

His hands skated up and down her sides, her thighs, as they breathed together almost nose to nose. 

“Hi,” she said softly, brushing her lips to his playfully before smiling.

“Hey.” 

The guilt settled in. He felt like he was robbing her of something, again. Twice. “Do you trust me?” 

He saw the answer in her smile. “Is that a trick question?” 

“No. It’s part of the rules.” He laid on his side and Felicity turned with him, settling her head against his arm and fisting a hands on his T-shirt. 

“Yeah, Oliver Queen, man who has saved my life multiple times; I trust you.”

Her tone made him smile, despite the lurking sadness that brought him. Yeah, she’d had trusted him. 

“Good. Close your eyes. I want your undivided attention.”

“You sure you can handle my undivided attention?” She shifted, her thigh slipping between his. 

“I can try.”

Felicity gave him one last pointed look, but then closed her eyes. “This is a nice departure from our usual.”

It was. More often than not, she’d been the one telling him what to do. Even when she was the one following him, there was always something in her eyes: an unshakable kind of certainty that made it clear who was leading who, even if he was giving the commands. 

Oliver took a deep breath, settled his hand at the curve of her waist. “What’s the last thing you remember?” 

Felicity tensed, her eyes snapping open. “What?” 

“Eyes closed, remember? The  _ very _ last thing you remember, what is it?”

She looked at him for long moments, but he kept smiling calmly, thumb rubbing soothing circles against her middle. She was unsure, there was something there that troubled her, he could see it in her eyes. But then after a moment she did close them again, shaking her head as if dismissing her doubt. 

“Well, I remember us fucking on the couch downstairs this morning.” She pointed in the general direction of the kitchen. 

It was Oliver’s time to squirm. 

She leaned forward just a little, eyes still closed. “And you promised we could stay here forever if that’s what I wanted.”

Oliver’s heart gave a lurch. “Is it? Is that what you want, Felicity?”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “I don’t think we have enough food to last us forever, but all weekend definitely sounds doable.”

“What do you remember before that?”

She opened her eyes again and now she was frowning. “You’re being weirder than usual.”

“Indulge me.”

He could see it in her face that she didn’t feel like it. “I thought we decided not to talk about that.”

“Did we?”

“This is not the kind of game I had in mind, Oliver,” Felicity huffed and scrambled off the bed, the yellow flowers on her shorts unnaturally bright and looking almost as cross at him as she was. She grabbed a handful of her discarded dresses and walked back to the closet, but didn’t have the patience to hang them up again, so she just dropped them on the chair there. 

“It was just a bad dream. And it’s not about trust, okay. I just… don’t want to  _ talk _ about it.” 

Oliver grabbed some of her dresses as well and went after her. He laid the dresses on the chair too – carefully, because she was almost as fussy about her clothes as she was about her tech. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”

Felicity bit the inside of her cheek and grabbed a hanger. He handed her one of her favorite blue dresses. 

“It’s okay,” she finally said. 

“Did you manage to talk to Laurel?” he asked after a few minutes of working in silence.

“About what?”

“Nothing in particular, I just couldn’t get a hold of her, wondered if you had.” 

Felicity shrugged. “She’s probably with Ted.”

“Right. But you’ve definitely seen her, though?”

“Yeah of course, I…” Felicity paused, hand suspended halfway through reaching for another hanger. Oliver held his breath, and tried not to show his disappointment when she just shook her head, brushing off whatever it was she’d been thinking. 

“Rene called me too,” Oliver pressed.

“Who?”

“Rene Ramirez. Quentin’s new assistant. He’s… a friend of Rory’s and Evelyn’s?”

Felicity shrugged. “Rory never mentioned him. Did Quentin need anything?” 

“Not particularly. Did Rory tell you if he’d be going home for the weekend?”

“He…” Felicity’s eyes were unfocused as she thought about it. “No, he didn’t say anything.” she added very quietly. “Anything else you’d like to know?”

“I’m just making conversation.”

She snorted, like the notion was exactly as ridiculous as it sounded. Oliver didn’t ‘make conversation’ with her, not like this. They both knew he was fishing.

“Making conversation?”

“Yeah.”

Felicity turned to him, hands crossed over her chest, eyeing him steadily. “Then why do I feel like I’m being interrogated?”

She watched him gulp, shift on his feet the way he did when he was nervous. When he was trying to cover for something. His whole face was a pamphlet for guilt and she couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

“Because I’m trying to tell you something,” he said slowly. “But I think it’ll be easier if you remember on your own. Nobody’s in danger.” He added in a hurry as if he’d read her mind. “This is just about you and me.”

Felicity sighed and dropped her arms to her sides. “So just tell me, Oliver. Just tell me.”

He looked at her for a long moment and then took her hand in his. “Come on.”

He drew her out of their room, down the stairs and she followed. He seemed okay, his coloring was good, he wasn’t limping and he hadn’t winced even once the whole time. His pupils had been fine – and so were his reaction time. He had to be fine, physically. Now, mentally, Felicity wasn’t so sure, but she could ride this out and see whatever it was he felt he needed her to see. 

As they walked through the living room, she grabbed her phone from the desk. She had Digg on speed-dial, she’d call him if she needed to. 

They stepped out into the balcony, and he walked them right to the fence. The city sprawled out in front of them, tinted in the warm gold of late afternoon. 

“Look. Look at it.”

“Look at what?”

Oliver pointed at the horizon. “That… what even is that? A bridge in the sky? When was that built?  _ How _ was it built?”

She followed turned looking towards where he was looking and stopped, seeing the curving building as if for the first time. 

Now that she thought about it… 

“And the snow. Can you see the snow down there, on the trees? It’s winter down there. Summer up here.” 

He gestured at the plants and flowers around them in their  garden, but she was more preoccupied staring down, at the snow covered trees. They looked small from up here but she could definitely see them.

“Yes, that’s because the weather… changes,” Felicity whispered. It did change. She’d noticed it before, she just hadn’t…  _ noticed _ . She’d thought it was kinda funny. 

A sudden thought occurred to her and she sucked in a sharp breath, turning to look at Oliver in alarm. “Oh my god, was I drugged with something?” When? How? “I’ve been in the house all day and last night I was fine!”

Oliver took her face in his hands gently, and the gesture on its own was enough to calm her. He wouldn’t be so calm if she was in danger, that much she was sure of. 

“You’re okay. I promise,” he said slowly. “You know you can trust me. Even when nothing else makes sense, you  _ can _ trust me.  But I think you need to figure this out on your own.”

The realization was waking up in her, like some strange beast stirring. That he was annoying her and that she was losing patience, but also that if what he was saying was true, building whatever this was as a puzzle would be the best way to get her to figure it out.  

“I need to know the riddle before I can answer it, Oliver. You’re not making any sense and neither is… neither is anything else.” 

She was starting to feel alone and that made her want to step out of his arms and just  _ be _ alone for a while. Instead, Oliver took both her hands and drew her closer. 

“It’s not a riddle, it’s a mystery. You already know. I know you do.”

“Know  _ what _ ?” Felicity snapped, her irritation momentarily pushing away her the clouds of her gathering fear.

“Try to think about it. When was the last time you actually saw Laurel? Spoke to her. How did you meet Rory? What happened to him? To his town? Don’t you remember?”

“I met Laurel just  _ yesterday _ ; she’s coming over tonight! And nothing happened to Rory! It’s… It’s…”

But she couldn’t breathe and she hadn’t even noticed but she’d retreated from him, arms wrapped around her middle. Her phone slipped through her numb fingers and fell, smashing apart on the ground. Felicity flinched hard at the noise. 

The sudden memory of another loud noise sliced through her brain. A petering sound, bullets, and the screeching of tires against asphalt. And the  _ cold _ ! God, the cold had been the worst part. She hadn’t been able to shake it off for weeks and weeks. 

_ Wait…wait! _

Felicity felt Oliver’s hands on her arms, holding her tight and making her look at him, just as a shiver ripped through her. Her breath formed a little could in front of her and she stared at it, unable to believe her eyes. It was as if the temperature had dropped 30 degrees. 

“Oh my god… what the hell is going on?”

“It’s all right. It’s okay. Don’t be scared.” 

She glared at him. “I’m  _ not _ scared!”

“You said you trusted me, remember?” he took her hand and pressed his against his heart, its beat steady beneath her palm. “Listen to me, Felicity.  _ I’m _ not scared. You know that if I’m not afraid, there’s no reason for you to be afraid.”

“Right now you’re just pissing me off, Oliver.” She willed herself to believe it too, because he obviously knew what was going on and he wasn’t telling her. But Oliver, he smiled like he was relieved.

“Good, that’s good.”

“Not so much for you, mister.”

He chuckled, couldn’t help it. “We can deal with that later. Right now, you need to remember why all of this is happening.”

“I don’t  _ know _ !” She resisted the impulse to stomp her feet. 

“You do! Think! What’s the last thing you remember?”

“ _ Stop saying that to me _ !” she raised her voice without meaning to, and just as she did, a flash of memory came to her, one she had been avoiding all day. 

But the more she pushed away, the harder he latched on and now he was looking as frantic as she felt. “When is the last time I said that to you?”

“Five seconds ago.”

“And before that?”

Felicity groaned, threw her hands up in the air. “I’m cold and I’m going back inside.”

“No!” He practically jumped in front of her, hands raised, palm up, to stop her. “No, wait. Please.”

But Felicity was starting to tremble. “Oliver, I’m freezing.”

“I know.” And he looked so sorry to keep her here, but not enough to go back inside with her. “It was cold that night too. The night you were shot. Remember?”

Felicity just shook her head. “I was not shot, I… I…” 

She couldn’t finish it, because suddenly the memory was there. One moment it never existed and the next it came at her like a freight train, slamming into her with all the pain of a real wound. She flinched, hand going to her side. Distantly she heard Oliver’s voice, saying it was okay. Saying other things that made no sense. 

It had been the first day of Hanukkah. Christmas. Oliver had just proposed. She’d said yes. They’d been going home. 

It had been so loud when it happened, and she’d been so cold… 

_ No _ . No, that wasn’t right! 

Oliver proposed in Ivy Town. There was desert involved and Champaign, and they  _ talked _ ! She’d said  _ yes _ then. Just before Thea and Laurel came knocking… 

_ Laurel…  _

A sharp sadness pierced her, as sudden and inexplicable as if she stepped on a shard of glass she hadn’t seen. 

Laurel… 

Felicity looked up at a blurred world; it took a couple of blinks to realize she was crying. Or was it raining? Her clothes were wet, as well as her face, her knees pressing on the soft earth.

“Oliver.”

“I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

His hands were so warm  they almost seared against her chilled skin, the way warmth feels after pressing snow all day until your fingers were numb. He pushed her hair away from her face, fingers brushing her cheeks, her lips, so gently. Felicity caught one of his hands and held on, trying to breathe again, trying to remember. 

It was as if two sets of memories were pushing against each other, trying to settle into her mind. It was too much, her head hurt. 

But now she knew… and the tug to the truth was like a string tied to her little finger that kept pulling and pulling at her. She didn’t want to go that way. She knew what waited for her there and it hurt…

“I think something horrible is going to happen,” Felicity whispered. It wasn’t a premonition; it was certainty. 

“Nothing will happen to you. I promise. I will get you out of here.”

“Out of here…” she repeated the words as if she could peel the meaning off them with her teeth. She pressed her cheek to his hand and stayed there a long moment, trying to get herself together, trying… 

Felicity drew back sharply, looked at his hand, and then his eyes, something dawning on her. Something important. 

The thread tugged and this time, she did not resist. 

“Oliver…” her voice shook. She cleared her throat. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?” 

Oliver just looked at her, heart in his eyes, and so much pain there she could hardly stand to look at him in the face. ( _ He didn’t  _ have _ an answer for her. He was standing in a world made up of her wishes and every single one of them hissed at his sins. He couldn’t give her anything, let alone answers _ .)

But then again, she didn’t need him to say anything, not really. In the end – just as it had in the beginning - she knew the truth just by looking at his face. At the heartbreak written all over it. 

She remembered how it had been, with the sun falling behind him and Oliver looking like his life was by all accounts over. Just like he did now.

“You’re not… because we’re not married.” The words came first as if they had always been t there, asleep, waiting for this. Oliver nodded, eyes shiny. Felicity couldn’t look at him. She let go of his hand, arms falling to her sides limp, no longer feeling the cold, only numb. 

Why? Why! Remember!

_ You already know…  _

“Because you lied to me.” She couldn’t feel her lips, but the words came out anyway. “Because  _ I _ left you. I  _ left _ you…” 

She had. She gave his ring back and ran. Had been running ever since. From him and her mistakes and… and something else too, something so huge that even now she couldn’t see past it. Whatever had been between them though, that had died somewhere between a rock and a hard place, and this whole thing… somehow she was living its macabre embalmment. 

_ What was she doing? _

Nobody had to tell her this wasn’t real. Oliver had known what he was doing: Felicity realized it herself. She reached into a pocket of her mind and the answer was there. Intuitively she wrapped her hand around it, that sharp piece of glass, and squeezed, until the edges of it cut her open. 

She couldn’t move. The embarrassment and humiliation of it all made her feel so small she might have slipped through the cracks of the floor. But the anger – the rage at the violation of her self, her mind, her person – gripped her by the hair and pulled her right up. 

She was panting when she looked at him. “What is this place?”

Oliver blinked fast. The sheen of his eyes eased but his voice was still heavy with feelings. “It’s a dream. Your dream.”

“This isn’t real,” She whispered it, still afraid of what would happen if she dared say it louder than a breath. 

“No, it’s not.”

“I think I remember a bright light, but…” And sounds like she’d never heard before. She’d been afraid, but couldn’t move.  “It’s been so  _ long _ . And I think I died… so many times…” 

She’d been trying to get out. The low voice at the back of her head whispered it, and Felicity knew it was true. She had wanted to escape and time after time, she’d failed. How do you get out of your head? 

Felicity laughed, a choked wet sound. You don’t. You just don’t. 

Oliver’s hands tightened around her arms. “You  _ didn’t _ die, Felicity. You’re fine, just asleep, and we’re going to get you out.”

She looked up and saw fear in his eyes. 

She needed to focus. She needed to keep breathing. And get out. Right? 

_ Right _ ? 

“We?” she asked instead.

“Yes, we.”

Felicity turned at the familiar voice. “Digg!”

He crouched down at the other side of her, his hand warm on her back, between her shoulders. His smile so familiar. “You didn’t think I’d let you do this on your own, did you?”

The familiar words jogged her memory. Him saying that to her, on a plane that had felt safer once she’d jumped out of it. He’d smiled then just like he was smiling now, hand stretched out for her to take. 

_ ‘We’re jumping together?’ _

_ ‘Of course we’re jumping together. You didn’t think I’d let you do this on your own, did you?’ _

Felicity gasped around a sob. “John…”

“It’s okay.” He held her his hand out to her again, and she took it. He pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

They walked past the balcony doors, and Oliver shut them behind him. 

“You need to change, and then we need to leave,” he said as he turned towards them. 

Felicity looked from him to Digg and back again. “The dream I had… about the bunker falling on us. It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

Oliver and Digg shared a look. “Not really, no,” Digg said. “We were here before but fucked it up. It’s gonna be okay this time.”

She felt like laughing. “Yeah? How?”

John looked from her to Oliver. “Where do you think we have to go?”

Felicity saw something like alarm flicker his eyes before he controlled it. “I’m not sure. This isn’t my dream. Felicity?”

They both looked at her like they expected her to answer, but she felt like she didn’t even understand the question. 

“I don’t know!”  _ Did she? _ “I didn’t know this was… whatever it is, till three seconds ago!”

“Okay, we try the Palmer Tech building and just go from there.”

Felicity frowned. “Palmer Tech? Why-”

“Aw, don’t the three of you look cozy?”

They all turned at the same time, both Oliver and Digg pushing Felicity behind them instinctively, almost blocking her view. But even if she hadn’t seen who it was, there was no mistaking that voice.

Felicity knew what she sounded; she’d heard her own voice all her life! And though it was strange to hear herself from across the room without a recording being involved - strange enough in fact to root her on the spot – what she saw was stranger still. 

“What. The.  _ Fuck _ …” she heard Digg whisper, dragging the last word between his teeth like a hiss. 

Felicity felt her stomach fall all the way to her feet, heart stuttering in her throat. 

It was like looking into a distorted mirror, but not so distorted that Felicity couldn’t recognize herself. It was…  _ her _ . Or someone who looked like her. In a dress so black, it seemed to absorb the light, her hair longer, darker and curlier than it had been in a long time, but… it  _ was _ her!

“Hey there, John. Oliver. Mini-me.”

John responded by pulling out his gun. He hadn’t pulled the safety off, so he probably wasn’t as sure of what he was seeing as he would have liked to be, but the weapon was still in his hand. Which meant that he was as freaked out as Felicity felt. 

Oliver on the other hand seemed frozen on the spot. 

“Congratulations. You got pretty far in this time. Color me only 2/3s bored.”

She took a step towards them, the stiletto cracking like a whip in the silence. John’s weapon clicked ominously. 

“Do  _ not _ move,” he ordered. 

Felicity saw herself smile and wished she hadn’t. It went nowhere near her eyes and there were too many teeth. She looked like a shark. 

“I don’t know where you think you are, Johnny, but let me just save you some trouble: those don’t work here.” She tilted her head, amused. “Not on me, anyway.”

“I’d like to test that theory.”

The Other one seemed unperturbed. “No, you wouldn’t. Not on someone with  _ this _ face.” 

Vaguely, Felicity registered Oliver turning to her. 

“What is that?” he asked her, low. As if it was only meant for her, but he didn’t care of the other one overheard. 

Felicity breathed in slow, breathed out. Didn’t look away from this darker version of herself. She felt like she was having a fever dream; hallucinating again. Only this time everyone could see her double.

_ Tell him. Go on.  _

Felicity gulped. “I don’t know.”

She saw her double smile, slow this time: a small knowing curve of red lips. 

“Liar, liar pants on fire.”  She sounded satisfied, like she’d known what Felicity would say before she said it, but neither John nor Oliver seemed to notice.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” John hissed. “We’re  _ leaving _ . Move, or you  _ will _ be moved.”

Felicity’s doppelganger blinked in a surprise so fake it was comical. “Leaving? Where are you going, John?”

“I said move,” John said through gritted teeth.

She laughed, loud, her head through back. Felicity flinched. 

“This is adorable. Did you think this was it? A small diversion, a little smarts, and it would be over?” Her expression turned fierce then, and Felicity grabbed a fistful of John’s jacked, wanting to pull him back. Afraid for him. 

Afraid.

_ Something horrible is going to happen…  _

“Oh honey, you have no  _ idea _ how deep this rabbit hole goes. But you’re right about one thing:  _ you _ are leaving. She’s not going anywhere, though.” 

“Yes she is.” Oliver finally spoke. The threat had finally pulled him out of her stupor.

“No, she’s not.” Her double’s eyes met hers, and it was like looking in a mirror. Felicity shivered and the other one smiled. “She doesn’t want to. Do you?”

That was all John seemed to need. He fired three shots in a row. It was so loud, it felt like he’d shot right by her ear. By experience, she knew they were all neatly center mass, right into her double’s chest. And going from how that dress had looked like it had been painted on, from wrist to throat to knees, there was no way her doppelganger – or whatever that thing was - had any protection under it. 

But when Felicity opened her eyes, she saw herself standing there utterly unharmed like any other hallucination.

“Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get some things straight,” she said, stepping into the better-lit part of the living room. And Felicity swore she looked almost off focus around the edges, blurred and dark and straight from a nightmare. “I’m going to give you one chance -  _ this  _ one chance - to leave without getting hurt.  _ Don't speak _ ! This is where you listen.” 

** “You see, you came in here laboring under the tragically misguided belief that this was  her world, but it’s not,” the double said, brushing her curls over her shoulder. “ It’s  ** _mine_ **.” **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is as good as it's going to get I'm afraid. let me know what you guys think - if the description of felicity's world was clear enough. if you cold imagine it. what I should fix. if the chapter was emotionally coherent - could you follow the emotional steps of the characters or was it all a jumble? these are all things I wondered about and im just tired of wondering so i'll leave it to you to judge.


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